


Nowhere to Run

by Owenjones



Series: Ineffable Assassins [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Alternate Universe - Human, Gaslighting, Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), Gonna get kinda dark, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Jumping back and forth in time, Killing Eve AU, Mild Sexual Content, Multi, Reunions, Sequel, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2020-10-11 23:37:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 41,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20554577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Owenjones/pseuds/Owenjones
Summary: Sequel to Killing Adam and Eve.After being left for dead by their respective sides, they chose one other. And now - they couldn’t escape each other even if they tried.





	1. Chapter 1

In an alleyway in Rome, with a trail of blood and bodies following them, they had chosen each other. It was too late to back out now.

“Anthony - please -” Ezra begged, and tugged at the hands that held him, “I want you. Oh God, I want you right now.”

“You have me,” Anthony whispered back, shoving him against the wall of the alley. He stole a kiss with such ferocity that Ezra’s knees almost gave out.

They had been left for dead by their respective sides, but they had proven their loyalty to each other that day.

Anthony pulled away to take a gasping breath, “Angel. Are you sure? Are you absolutely fucking sure?” In response, the hands on his shirt gripped tighter, Ezra’s half-lidded eyes shined at him. He began to lean in again as if reeled in by a magnetic force, and Anthony pushed him away.

“There’s no turning back.” Anthony warned, “There’s no going back to normal. This is it.”

“I don’t want normal,” he said. 

“You’d be leaving everyone behind, all your family and friends.”

“I don’t have any.”

“You’d be in danger. You might die.”

And Ezra _moaned_, “Anthony. I’m more sure than I have ever been in my life.”

“Take me, then.” He said breathily.

Ezra grabbed his hand and ran out of the alleyway. Both of them felt incredibly dazed. One thing was certain though: they needed to find a car.

Anthony offered, “I can steal keys off someone, or try to hijack-”

“No need to bother with that,” Ezra said in an innocent tone, “If you can get me in a car, I can hotwire it,” 

Anthony tugged at his hand, “Oh, you brilliant thing. Don’t ever stop surprising me.” He continued down the street and proceeded to pull on every handle of every car door until he found one that was left unlocked, “Go on, do your magic.” 

Anthony wanted nothing more than to watch his love steal a car. He gazed dreamily at him over the open door, while Ezra sat in the drivers’ seat and began to mess about with the wires until a familiar engine purr began, “And there we go…” 

“Okay, now scootch over.”

Ezra began to buckle himself up, “I’m driving, my dear.”

“No offense, but I gotta drive. It’s a control thing. Move over.” 

Ezra gave him a grumpy look, and shifted himself over to the passenger seat, “Anthony, get in,” he pulled on his arm, “Get in, I think that man owns the car.” Ezra pointed to someone running their direction.

“Fuck, okay.” Anthony climbed in and floored it. The owner of the car only barely managed to jump out of the way. Ezra grabbed onto the dashboard in fear but laughed hysterically all the while. 

After a few more near-misses of pedestrians and a lot of tire screeching, Ezra asked, “Do you actually know how to drive?”

“Of course. I’m doing it right now, aren’t I?”

“I mean, do you have a license?”

“I’ve been legally dead since I was about seventeen, angel. And before that, I was in and out of trouble… I never really had the chance to. But, I _can_ drive, obviously.” He punctuated this point with a quick gear change, and the car lurched.

“Whatever you say,” Ezra was starting to feel a little nauseous at every crash they just barely escaped. Things started to get better when they left the city limits. Although he was still driving insanely fast - faster than before even - there were much fewer things to crash into. Anthony was driving them out until there was nothing except for vineyards as far as the eye can see. Not a soul around for miles. The sky was beginning to turn orange by this point, giving both of them a nice glow. Anthony pulled over on the empty road and stopped the car. 

Ezra first thought that Anthony might finally be deciding to kill him, after everything. For some reason, he felt a twinge of excitement at the prospect, rather than fear. 

When he finally spoke, Anthony’s voice was anything but threatening, “Wanna spend the night here?” 

“I would love that,” Ezra responded, putting his hand on Anthony’s thigh, flickering his eyes up and down his body. He bit his lip as Anthony took his hand and slid it further up the thigh until it reached -

“Fuck,” Anthony groaned, leaning back in his seat, slowly pushing his hips up against Ezra’s hand. 

“Oh,” Ezra was speechless, “O-oh my.”

“Enjoying yourself?” Anthony peeked out one eye, and pointed to Ezra’s trousers. He looked down at himself and blushed, his excitement clearly evident.

Anthony climbed over to the passenger side, seating himself right on Ezra’s lap. They had never felt so connected before. Ezra’s hands explored all over his willowy frame, his breath was hot on Anthony’s neck. Anthony ground down on his lap, and smirked at the sounds that movement had caused.

“You looked so fucking hot holding a sword,” Anthony said, “I’m going to fantasize about that for the rest of my life.”

Ezra had lost all control over his actions. He gripped Anthony’s hips and pulled him as close as physically possible. The friction sent sparks up both of them. Anthony gasped at the sudden sensation, and threw his hands into Ezra’s hair, the feeling of his blond curls between his fingers eliciting yet another moan.

“I want you,” Ezra groaned in his ear, “I want you right now.”

“You have me,” Anthony whispered back. 

They both began to tug at the clothes standing frustratingly between them. The car was hardly a big enough space for this, and in the rush, Anthony kept hitting his sore head against the ceiling, and Ezra kept banging his elbow against the car door. But, fuck, they were powerless to do anything else. 

Ezra drank in the sight of Anthony’s bare chest as he finally wrangled the buttons undone. He leaned in and bit him, all over. Anthony squealed with every brush of teeth. It stung beautifully and left bruises and teeth marks all the while. 

Ezra pulled back, “You’re _mine._” 

“I’m yours.” Anthony agreed, breathlessly, helpless to do anything but hold on tightly to the hair in front of him, “I’ll always be yours.”

Ezra roughly managed to pull down Anthony’s pants, just enough. He stuck a finger in his mouth. They locked eyes while he moved his hand down and began to tease him. 

Anthony growled through gritted teeth, “Oh, I’ve waited too long for this, just fuck me already - Ahh,” His eyelids fluttered closed as Ezra slid inside. Ezra’s heart skipped a beat, and he let out a choked moan, already feeling himself grow harder than he has ever been in his life at the sight in front of him.

Anthony couldn’t wait any longer. He unzipped Ezra’s trousers. Gasping, “Fffuck. You’re beautiful.”

Spurred on by Anthony’s enthusiasm, Ezra pulled him down on himself. Both their mouths fell open as he entered him, far more slowly than Anthony had expected or wanted. Once he was in all the way, they went still, taking a trembling breath, getting used to the feeling. It slightly hurt in their haste to get things going, but Anthony loved it. 

He began to shift, up and down. After Ezra let out a sound that could only be described as divine, Anthony smiled and quickened. Faster, faster… 

He nearly died when Ezra wrapped his arms around and began to thrust into him. Anthony cried out the fire inside him coursed its way through his entire body. 

The rough consummation left them unable to move and gasping for air. Their fates as intertwined as their bodies. 

***

_What the fuck am I doing_, Antonia asked herself as she walked up to the scruffy cottage in the middle of nowhere. _You better be sure about this._

She was five years older now, and she was more careful than she was in Italy. So, of course she was sure about it. She had taken three buses to get there, for Christ’s sake. 

The cottage looked so decrepit and uninviting that it had to be intentional. Caused by active destruction rather than simple neglect. She took a few steps over some broken pots and had to push past the overgrown shrubbery to get to the front door, where she gave a little knock. No answer. If she didn’t know any better, it would seem like the home was abandoned. But, she did know better and knocked a little louder. Receiving no answer again, she twisted the doorknob. 

“Hey, it’s me.” She said, poking her head in the dark living room, “Look, I know we haven’t-”

She gritted her teeth as she was roughly pulled into the home and shoved against the door, slamming it closed. 

“Alright, Ezra,” She squirmed against his strong hold, and tried not to sound as worn out as she was, “hope you’re doing well.” Ezra was looking weary too, the years weighing down on him, but not in an unattractive way. He looked more scruffy than the last time she had seen him, he’d let his facial hair grow out, for one thing. She squeaked when she felt something sharp press on her abdomen, just enough pressure for her to be aware of the knife’s presence. 

“Anthony. I’m not scared of you,”

“Believe me, I know that. And I’m not here to, you know-”

“Face the wall.”

“Are you serious?”

Ezra spun her around and began to systematically pat her down, pulling out a few dangerous items from her pockets and stockings. And then a few more, and a few more.

“Couldn’t wait to get your hands on me, could you-” Ezra’s glare cut her off. 

“My dear. This is a lot of weapons, even for you.” He gestured to the small pile building up of things discovered on her person, before tossing each one out his door. 

“Well, I had reason to worry, didn’t I? With you waving a knife around the second I pop in for a friendly visit.”

“I would have been quite happy to never have seen you again. And I told you as such last time we spoke.”

“No, I don’t think that’s true,” Antonia turned around, and leaned seductively against the wall, “I’ve missed you a lot, angel.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“You’ve missed me too.”

“No.”

“What do you miss most about me, huh?” She licked her bright red lips, knowing full well what effect that had on Ezra. 

He shut his eyes heavily, “Just tell me why you are here.”

“Truth is, I need your help. And it has to be you, I can’t ask anyone else.”

Ezra scoffed.

“I do!” Antonia risked reaching out and taking Ezra’s hands, moving them back to her own body, but much more tenderly than the pat-down, “You know I don’t like coming back here with my tail between my legs, but I-”

“On the contrary, I think you’re enjoying yourself quite a lot. Whatever scheme you’ve got yourself tangled up in, I don’t want to be involved,”

“What happened to our arrangement? I help you, you help me-”

“You know full well what happened to that,” Ezra snapped, sharply pulling away, “Whatever you want, I’m saying no.”

Antonia winced, “How ‘bout a drink then? For old time’s sake.”

He then paused and took a moment to examine her. She certainly seemed to be doing much better than the last time he had seen her, and it would be good to keep track of what she’s been doing. So, he conceded, “_One_ drink.” 

He walked over to the kitchen placing his knife down within reach before opening a new bottle of wine, pouring two glasses. Antonia took hers and drank it down so quickly it burned a bit. Ezra, meanwhile, sipped it lovingly, savouring the taste on his tongue. 

She knew well enough that, deep down, he had already agreed to help. He just needed a little bit of time to realize it.   



	2. Chapter 2

It had been a dream, driving through the countryside of Italy. They had a serial dine-and-dash spree all through the various towns they passed through. They would gorge themselves on all the Italian delicacies at every restaurant that struck their fancy. The thrill of stealing the food somehow made it taste all the better. 

They were swept up in the whirlwind of being together, being on the run. Nothing seemed to matter anymore except for having a hedonistic good time. Stealing Italian wine straight from the wineries, and sharing the bottle under the stars. 

And in those drunken nights, they whispered so many things to each other. 

_You were made for me_  
_I’d die without you_  
_You’re mine, all mine_

And they learned everything about the touch of one another’s bodies. Ezra studied Anthony’s like a book, running his hands slowly to read each line on his body. So many scars that Anthony couldn’t even answer where most of them came from. He always lingered a moment on the red line there on Anthony’s stomach, apologizing without words. 

And Anthony explored Ezra’s body like he wanted it all at once. Like it was all too much to see him like that. He had practiced this so many times in his head and in his dreams. He wouldn’t believe his luck, thinking that he must be about to wake up at any second. In those moments, he tried to get a taste of everything before it could slip away and he would wake up alone again.

The car’s engine began to sputter just about the time they arrived in Florence. They ditched it by the sidewalk, Anthony giving it one final appreciative pat on the bonnet before leaving it behind. 

“What now?” Ezra asked.

“I guess we’re staying here for a bit,”

“I’m not sure if that’s a smart idea,” Ezra gestured to the huge crowds of people with bum bags and baseball caps and the shops selling kitschy keychains of every Italian monument, “There’s too many people.”

“Safety in numbers, angel. Plus I think we can put your hands to work.” He smirked, “You can get through locked doors, hotwire cars. Do you know how to pickpocket?” 

Ezra looked sheepishly proud, “I can.”

“Hah, I thought so. Follow my lead,” He squeezed his hand, and then they separated.

Anthony walked up to a couple who looked loaded, brandishing their expensive phones and clothes. They were begging for a robbery, Anthony told himself. He tapped on the shoulder of the man, and pleaded in an American accent, “Hey, uh, do you guys speak English?”

“Yeah,” They responded, Californian accents. Anthony mentally cheered. 

“Oh thank God! I’m really, really lost. I’m looking for my hotel, and my phone ran out of battery and I can’t speak a word of Italian-”

They listened, enraptured in the tale he was spinning, while Ezra snuck their wallets out of their pockets.

The couple was only too amenable, “That should be right down the street, according to my phone,” The woman pointed.

Anthony laid the gratitude on thick, “Thank you, thank you, thank you so much. Bless you. Both of you. Have a _great_ day.”

They reconvened at a museum after a few more of these scams. Ezra realised he’d had more fun with this than he had for years. He found Anthony standing in front of Michaelangelo’s David, and grabbed the hand hanging by his side.

“Do you like this sculpture?” he asked.

Anthony nodded, keeping his gaze up longingly at David, “I do.”

Ezra’s mind went back to the gorgeous perfume he had been gifted, whose box depicted the temptation of Eve, “You like biblical things, don’t you? I wouldn’t peg you as the type.”

“Oh, yeah big Bible fan, me. I mean, not so much believing in it. I think it’s a load of rubbish, but I like the stories and the art.” He shrugged “It’s nostalgic, I guess.”

“Were you raised Christian?”

“Nah. But not for lack of trying.” He turned to Ezra, “I’ve always asked too many difficult questions to be religious.”

“I bet that got you in a fair bit of trouble,”

“Yup.” Anthony sighed, “How about you? You believe in anything?”

“I suppose I must do,” he replied, “I was. I was raised Christian, I mean. Though nowadays I never go to church, or read the Bible, or do anything particularly religious, but I still think there must be something out there. Mustn’t there?”

Anthony hummed, “You know what I really like about this David? It’s his face. He’s looking at big old Goliath over there and he’s anxious. He doesn’t know how the fight is gonna go.”

“Is that right?” Ezra tilted his head to try and see it through Anthony’s eyes.

“Yeah. Everyone else who does David does it like in the moment of victory, or whatever. But this guy, his life hangs in balance, and he’s really nervous about it. He doesn’t know what’s in his future, like…” He caught himself before he revealed too much, “ngh, no nevermind, it’s stupid.”

“It’s like what, my dear?”

“It’s like… like us.”

“Oh, I see,” Ezra blushed. 

They stared up in awe at the giant in marble for a moment, before Anthony added, “Plus if you go ‘round the back you get a really nice view.”

“Anthony!” Ezra tutted.

“Come on, angel, let’s get a room.”

***

After Antonia got her foot in the door by requesting a drink, she knew she had him. One drink turned into one bottle, which then turned into two, and finally Ezra began to be a bit more frank, “I never got any gifts at this address. I thought you’d finally lost track of me.” 

“I did, for a bit.” Antonia considered her answer, “Well, actually that’s not true. I just got too busy.”

“Moved on, did you?”

“I could never.”

“You always manage to find your way back into my life… What is it - that you want from me, I mean?” Ezra asked, swirling the wine in his glass. 

Antonia grinned and raised her eyebrows, “I thought you didn’t want anything to do with it,”

“Obviously not. I’m still saying no, but I’m just curious… as to what you’ve been up to.”

“I still fascinate you, do I?” She leaned down on the table, looming over Ezra. 

“No,” he scolded, “Not at all. I haven’t even thought about you in ages.”

“Now _that’s_ a lie if I ever heard one.” Antonia moved behind Ezra’s chair, and began to softly massage him, “You think of my cooking every time you heat up a microwave meal in this tiny kitchen. When you catch a glimpse of your gorgeous bedhead in the mirror, you think of the way I used to gaze at it when we woke up.” She began to slide her hands down his chest, “And I’ll bet you still think of me at night. I still think of you.”

Ezra relaxed under the familiar touch, and let his eyes fall closed. Antonia hummed as she began to explore his face, and the new features found there since the last time they saw each other. Ezra having a beard had surprised her at first, but she was quickly finding she loved running her hands through it.

And that was what broke down the barrier between them, “Just tell me what you want.”

“It’s Adam. You know, Lucy’s son? I’m going to help him get in the business, and I need your help.”

Ezra slammed his drink down on the table, “Absolutely not. He is a child.”

“He’s almost eighteen now.”

“He is a _child_. And you’re trying to manipulate him into-”

“_He_ came to me. He’s going to do this anyway whether we help him or not. I want to make sure he’s safe.”

Ezra scoffed.

“And that’s why I need you. Because I’ve worked with you - and I know you won’t like me saying this - but you’re fucking good-”

“Oh, please-”

“You’re fucking good staying out of trouble because you were on their side once. The people that catch us, I mean.” Ezra rolled his eyes. Antonia took his hand and squeezed it desperately, “Help me keep Adam out of prison, that’s all I’m asking.”

He tried to refuse eye contact, “I don’t want to get involved,”

“You do,” Antonia stared directly at him, “I can see it.”

Ezra poured himself another drink, “No. I don’t. Why on Earth does he want to become an assassin anyway? He seemed like a nice child.”

“Pfft, you never spoke to him, did you?”

“Not extensively. We only met once.”

“Well, he’s stubborn as hell, honestly. Once he’s got his mind set on something, he just goes and makes it happen. And he’s dead-set on this whole thing.”

“Have you even tried to talk him out of it?”

“I’m not his mum.”

He huffed, “If you won’t be a responsible adult, I will. I’m putting my - my foot down. I’m saying no.”

Antonia held out her glass for another refill, biting back her comment that Ezra seemed much more like a petulant child than, as he put it, a responsible adult.

***

The smell of lasagna filled up their little Florence flat. They only had a rickety gas oven fitted to the kitchenette, but somehow Anthony had managed to produce a beautiful, bubbling pasta dish. Ezra was absolutely ravenous by the time Anthony put down the dish in front of him. He jumped up to grab a serving only to be stopped.

“Ah, ah. Gotta let it cool off a bit.”

Ezra pouted, “I’ve waited long enough.”

“Patience is a virtue.”

“Please, Anthony.”

“It’s for your own good.”

Anthony relished in the sight of Ezra squirming in his seat, probably drooling. And when he finally gave him the okay to serve himself, he waited anxiously for his reaction. It was better than he could have imagined. 

His eyes practically rolled to the back of his head as he tasted lovely, cheesy mess, “Oh, my dear.” He moaned, “This is… I think this is the best meal I’ve ever had.”

Anthony smirked, “Damn right.”

“I didn’t know you were so good at this. It’s absolutely heavenly. What else can you cook?”

“All sorts. Ask me for anything and I’ll make it for you.” He gazed lovingly at his angel. 

“I think I might take you up on that,”

“Tell me,” Anthony sat, absolutely eating up the faces Ezra made as he enjoyed the food, “How are you so good at picking pockets?”

“Mmm. I taught myself when I was a child.”

“Wanted to be a thief when you grew up?”

“No, I… don’t laugh.” He dabbed the corner of his mouth before revealing, “I wanted to be a magician.”

Anthony nearly spat out his drink, “Magician?”

“I have very good sleight of hand, that’s why I can take things without attracting attention.”

“Pfft,” he held in a laugh.

Ezra fretted, “I don’t know, I liked the idea of it. I was very good at it too! And anyway, what did you want to be when you were eight?”

He looked down, grinning, “Yeah, okay. I was as silly as you. My dream was to be an actor,”

The thought of an innocent little Anthony, though not yet called that, filled his heart with melancholy. He could see the wide-eyed kid sneaking into the cinema to watch James Bond films, longing for the lives of the people he saw on screen. That little kid was still there sometimes, like when he got excited over learning something new about Ezra.

They stuffed themselves on the food. When they finished, Anthony dragged Ezra to bed, where they quickly fell to a nice, satisfied sleep. Ezra forgot that they were anything but a normal couple traveling.

***

“You’re staying here, I assume,” Ezra said, cleaning up their glasses.

“Nahh, I can - I can take the bus home.” 

“My dear, you’re far too drunk.”

Antonia laid her head down on the table, “I’m still your dear?” She startled when Ezra began to run his hands through her long hair. 

“Of course.”

“Mmmm I love when you do that.” She slurred. 

“I know.” He stared down at her softly, and every fond feeling he’d tried to escape over the years hit him like a bolt of lightning, “Let’s get you to bed.”

“N-no I’m leaving. You don’t wanna help me,” She abruptly stood up, but tumbled into Ezra’s arms. 

“You’re okay.” He patted her back and began to lead her to the cottage bedroom. She easily settled down under the covers, and lazily tugged on his sleeve. Encouraging Ezra to climb into bed with her, but he stood firm by her side.

“Love of my life, don’t leave me.” She murmured in a sing-songy voice before drifting to sleep. 

Ezra extricated his arm from the sleeping woman. He brushed her hair away from her face a little, and spotted something new. An ink snake coiled its way down her temple. He hummed, not quite sure what to make of it. 

He left her, finished the bottle they had been sharing - not wanting it to go to waste - and settled down on the living room couch. He realized he would wind up leaving with her no matter what. Even after all these years, he was still as helpless as he was in Italy.

The next thing he knew, the morning sun was beating down on him.

He woke with a splitting headache, groaned, and almost vomited as soon as he sat up. Everything hurt. Whether it was from the excess of alcohol, or from falling asleep on the couch, who’s to say? Though something in the cottage smelled absolutely wonderful. He peeked his head up and saw Antonia humming around his kitchen. 

“Good morning,” He groaned. 

“Morning! I’m making you some crepes.”

Ezra stumbled over to the bathroom to splash some cold water on his face and take a couple aspirin. He hardly felt any better. He brought himself back to the kitchen and plopped down at the table, where a place was already set for him, with a steaming cup of Earl Grey at the ready. 

“I’m not sure if I’m up for crepes at the moment.”

“Not up for - who are you and what have you done with my angel?” 

Ezra lurched and tried to keep down his sip of tea, “I’m not feeling well.”

“Hungover, huh? Weak.” Antonia smiled, and said teasingly, “I drank more than you and I feel pretty much fine.”

“I am quite a bit older than you. Wait until you’re my age, and then you’ll see how you handle getting completely pissed.”

“You’re not that much older, so calm down. Besides, they say that redheads can hold their liquor.”

“I’m not sure that counts if you got your red hair from a box, my dear.”

“Okay, rude.” 

Ezra rubbed his forehead, “Anthony… I’ll consider helping you.”

She put the fruit-filled crepe down on Ezra’s plate, and smiled sweetly, “Thank you.”

“But,” Ezra continued, “I want to try and talk him out of it first”


	3. Chapter 3

Antonia paced around impatiently while Ezra read the local newspaper. The bus that was going to start their journey to Oxford was late. 

“Fucking hate the bus,” Antonia complained.

Ezra tutted at her. 

“I bet that’s why you chose this place, huh?” 

“My deepest apologies for making it more difficult for you to stalk me.”

“Ngk,” she kicked a stone. 

Ezra folded the paper up, “How have you been doing, mentally?”

“Fine, fine. And you?”

“Perfectly. Though you were having some issues in that area, as far as I recall.”

“Oh, don’t you psychoanalyze me. I’m fine.”

“I’m just curious as to where your mind is at. You are a psychopath after all.”

A pained look flashed across Antonia’s face, “Don't they tell you in all those books of yours not to call a psychopath a psychopath? It hurts their feelings.” 

“All those books of mine say that you don’t have any feelings.”

“Pfft. You don’t believe that, do you?”

Ezra didn’t answer. She rolled her eyes, “Goddamn it, when is this bus coming?”

“Patience is a virtue, my dear.”

***

Ezra snapped awake in a cold sweat. His heart hammering. He pulled his arm out from under Anthony. It was painfully asleep, all pins and needles. The only sound in the Florence flat was his heavy breathing. In and out, in and out. 

He had been having a dream. What was it about?

_The wet squelch as blade met body._

He scrambled up until he was sitting, grasped his chest to try and slow down his heart. He was going to have a heart attack. His breathing became ragged and his stomach churned.

_Blood-coated metal._

An involuntary noise emerged from his throat. He rubbed his face, rubbed away the images from the dream. Pale faces. Blood everywhere. The wet sounds in the bathtub. Steel clattering on tile. His heart stomping at his chest. 

Anthony began to rouse, he hummed and reached an arm around Ezra to pull him close, but was surprised to find him sitting straight up, “You okay?”

“Anthony…” He said breathlessly, “Please tell me - did I kill someone? Did that really happen or - or did I dream it?”

He mumbled, “Yeah, it was real,”

“Oh dear God-”

Anthony sat up next to him, lazily laid his head on Ezra’s shoulder, and began to rub his chest, “Shh… we’re okay.”

“I’m not okay,” Ezra continued to panic.

“You _are_ okay.” Anthony assured him, continuing his slow movement, “Did you forget about what happened?”

He nodded. The memories were flooding back despite his attempts to keep them walled up way in the back of his mind.

Anthony kissed his cheek, “I know just what you need.” He slowly moved his hand further and further down. Ezra twitched as he reached under the waistband of his pants, “Shh, I’ll take care of you.”

He slowly began to stroke him, as his warm voice whispered in Ezra’s ear, “Think of me and nothing else. I’m here for you.”

Ezra began to relax, lean back into the headboard. His breathing grew heavy but slower than before. He couldn’t see those wonderful golden eyes in the dark room, but they filled up his mind all the while. 

“You’re so good, so perfect for me.” 

Ezra was beginning to forget all his horrible thoughts and just focused on the feelings drawn out by clever hands and the devil whispering things on his shoulder. 

“Think of me when I kill someone. You like that, don’t you?” And Ezra reacted to that rather unexpectedly, quivering under his touch, “I feel so amazing when someone’s life just quietly slips away by my hand, I get high on that feeling, I can almost get off on it. That’s what I discovered the first time. It’s such a rush, isn’t it?”

Anthony’s hand began to work faster, “You were so fucking hot, I swear you were so hot when I saw you coming to save me.”

Ezra began to squirm a little.

“Shh, it’s okay. It feels good, doesn’t it?”

Ezra nodded haltingly. Anthony took that as a cue to pump ever faster.

“It felt good when you killed her. You told me that. Do you remember?”

“Y-yes.”

“Think back to that, my angel. Oh, you’re doing so well, just think back to that for me. You made yourself forget about it, but you gotta remember.”

A helpless whine started in the back of his throat. Anthony was squeezing a little too tight, moving a little too quick. Setting a frantic pace. 

“Think of it, think of how much power you had. I bet you’ve never felt that in control before in your entire life. It felt so good. That’s what you needed, exactly what you needed. Oh, angel, I love you so much.”

He cried out as his climax was pulled from him. 

Ezra fell back asleep soundly, no more nightmares. Anthony kissed him on the forehead, before standing up. He crept out to the early morning for an hour or so, and was back in bed before Ezra woke. He knew that Ezra needed more practice, and he would give it to him. He would give him everything he needed.

***

The bus lulled them to a calm conversation. They had a lot to catch up on, after all. 

“How have you been spending your days?” Ezra asked, and he seemed genuinely curious.

“I’ve been doing this and that,” Antonia responded, “I’m a mum now.”

He would have choked if he were eating, Ezra was not expecting to hear that. It would explain why she hadn’t been in contact despite apparently knowing full well where he was hiding. But, dear God, a child - or even children? His shock must have shown on his face because Antonia quickly corrected herself.

“Sorry - a plant mum, I mean. I’ve got potted plants.”

_Oh thank God,_ Ezra thought. “What… er, what type?”

She beamed, “All sorts! I’ve never been able to have any before since I was always traveling here and there for work. But things have kind of settled for me at the moment. I, er, I talk to them. It relaxes me.”

Given what he remembered from what Anthony whispered to him at night, he couldn’t imagine the treatment those plants got. Poor things must have been terrified. 

Antonia quickly shifted the conversation away from what she had been doing the past five years, “How have you been passing your time cooped up in that little cottage? Seems, I dunno, a little boring.”

Ezra chuckled, “It is. But that’s the price I pay for a little privacy. Though obviously, it hasn’t worked.”

“But what do you _do_?”

“This and that,” Ezra smirked.

“You must be doing something to keep yourself entertained. If not something, then someone.”

“Oh, don’t be crass…” He tutted, and let Antonia’s giggles run out of steam before speaking again, “Anthony, there’s something I’ve been wondering. What made you stop?” 

“Huh? Stop what?”

“What made you stop sending me things?”

She began to examine her nails, “Erm. I-”

“You still miss me, you still think about me, you still love me. So, what changed?”

“Lots of things,” Antonia sensed Ezra tap-dancing around his real question. He had been doing that since the night before. 

_Moved on, did you?_

Antonia finally felt a sense of control that had been absent ever since she stepped into the cottage. She smiled a bit, and relished in it. Telling the full truth right away would put the power back in his hands, so she played coy for just a bit longer, “Work got insane, I got distracted.”

“Sick of waiting for a response I suppose?”

“Honestly, no,” she looked at him, “I could wait a thousand years to see you again and be perfectly content.”

“Why send letters and gifts at all, then?”

“I wanted to make sure you wouldn’t forget about me.” She dug her teeth into her bottom lip.

His face began to turn red at that, and he turned away before any other bodily responses could occur, “Sadly, no matter how much I’ve tried, I’m afraid that it can’t be done.” He carefully considered his next question, “You mentioned a distraction, what exactly-”

And… she couldn’t hold back any longer, “Okay, fine. I’ll answer your _real_ question.”

“My real-”

“No, Ezra. No, I’m not seeing anyone else.” 

“Oh!” He scratched his beard, “Yes, I suppose I had been wondering.”

***

That morning, as he brought Ezra a cup of coffee, he said, “We need money.”

“Can’t we keep doing the pickpocketing? I’ve been having good fun with that.” 

“No, we need to be off soon. Somewhere else - France. So, we need more cash than we can get from scamming random tourists.”

“What are we to do, then?”

“I’ve got just the thing.” He put a hand on Ezra’s “But first you have to promise me something. Promise me that you’ll always be there to protect me, okay?”

Ezra raised his eyebrows, “You know I will.”

Anthony came very close to Ezra’s face, “Just say it.”

“Okay… I promise I will always protect you.”

“Good. Now, I’ve signed us up to do a job.”

Ezra frowned, “A job?”

“Yeah, I’ll explain on the way.”

He led Ezra out to the fringes of the city, where tourists were told to stay away from. They made their way to the alley, where Anthony stood as bait. The mark walked by, enticed by what he saw, and approached him, entering his personal space. Anthony kept a hand in his pocket, clutching his own weapon. But he did not brandish it.

“What are you doing out here?” the soon-to-be-dead man said, “Pretty thing like you on a night like this.”

“Go ahead. Do it.” Anthony hissed.

The man looked hungrily at his prey, ready to take him up on his word. But he didn’t see that underneath the sunglasses, Anthony was looking elsewhere. He was looking at the man hidden in the shadows who hadn’t made his presence known yet.

Anthony shoved the man, who quickly shoved back with much more force. He was slammed back against the wall, “Do it now.” 

Ezra was hypnotized by the sight of Anthony being manhandled. He flew forward, grabbed the man by his head, and slit his throat. He held him tight as he struggled and bled out. Then, he fell limp, and Ezra let go of him. The man collapsed, twitching and gasping. Ezra took a breath, closed his eyes. All he could feel was the warm lips that pressed against his own. He was quivering terribly even while he was being led away from the scene of the crime.

“Well done. That arsehole deserved everything he got,” Anthony assured him with a hand on his back, “He was a sadistic guy. If you hadn’t done that he would have tried to hurt me.”

“I know.”

“There was a good reason someone put out a hit on him.”

Ezra gulped and nodded in agreement. That night, they got a hefty paycheck for their trouble. 

Anthony woke up the next morning to a cold bed and the harsh sound of the shower running. And he realised Ezra wasn’t next to him. 

He stretched and got out of bed, knocking on the bathroom door, “Hey, I need to use the loo.”

No answer. He knocked a little louder.

“I’m coming in, okay?”

The room was so steamed up that Anthony could hardly see anything. Ezra was humming Beethoven’s 9th frantically while scrubbing himself raw under the scalding water. 

“Ezra? Love?”

The shadow behind the shower curtain jumped, “Yes?”

“What are you doing?”

The curtains shifted, he poked his head out. Eyes startlingly bloodshot, “Just showering, dear.”

“Right. Showering. You okay?”

The water shut off. He grabbed a towel. 

“Someone saw me, Anthony.”

“What d’you mean?”

“I went out for a walk to clear my head this morning, and everyone was looking at me. Anthony, I had a spot of blood on me. And everyone saw it.”

“I’m sure no one noticed-”

“Someone probably called the police, dear Lord.”

“Everything’s fine, calm down. They probably thought that you cut yourself shaving, I dunno.”

A strange noise rose out of his throat as he began to dry himself off. 

“And besides, we’re leaving this city soon, okay?” Anthony reached his arms around Ezra’s body, “We have the money. We can leave. Today if we want.”

***

Their conversation had turned into silence for a while. The bus ride was too long for them to talk every second of it. As Antonia gazed out the window, a few regrets began to flash through her mind, “You know, I’m sorry for the way I acted, angel.”

“Are you?” Ezra shot her a look, “Or are you just trying to get on my good side again?” 

She crossed her arms, “I’m not trying to manipulate you or anything. I’m being honest-”

“I have stopped trying to believe that you can do things without being manipulative. But it’s okay, I have accepted it.”

“Oh, you’ve accepted it, have you? Look, I have been nothing but loyal. I have never stopped loving you, no matter what.” Antonia tried to take his hand, but he pulled it to his own lap and clasped it with his other hand.

“You have a strange way of showing love.” Ezra said. 

“Says the man who stabbed me.”

“Says the person who sent me hundreds of threats, and who attacked-”

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t need to go on about it. I know that was bad. I was in a bad place-”

“I was too, at the time you did all those things. Not that you seemed to care.”

“Of course I cared.” She shot him a pleading look, “You never called the police on me. I took that to mean… I dunno, something,” she shrugged.

Sounding incredibly frustrated, Ezra exclaimed, “I couldn’t, Anthony. I couldn’t. I was running away from them just as much as I was running away from you. Surely you caught on to that.”

“Oh…I thought…ngk.” She gulped and looked back out the window, “How’s your sister?”

“I haven’t spoken to her.”

_Really killing this conversation, huh?_ Antonia thought. 

Luckily, Ezra spoke up before the silence could settle in again, “You say you’re sorry. What are you sorry for, exactly?”

“Everything I did wrong. And, you know, I admit I didn’t exactly do the right thing all the time-”

He quickly cut her off, “What about the things you said?”

“Huh?”

Ezra steeled himself for a moment before proceeding, “You know. The things you said to me.”

“You’re going to have to be more specific… Is this something I said in one of the letters? Because to be honest I don’t remember writing a lot of them-”

“You told me I was worthless.”

Antonia stared at him, her brow furrowing, “What are you talking about?”

“Pathetic. Repulsive. You said all those things, I remember it.”

“The thing about those letters, I was extremely drunk and possibly on other, more illicit substances when I-”

“This isn’t about the damn letters.” He snapped, “You spoke those words directly to me, to my face.”

“What…? I… I don’t know where this is coming from. I didn’t say that, I would never say any of that-”

“Oh please! I’m not an idiot, Anthony. Don’t try to gaslight me,” he said in a somber tone.

“Don’t try to gaslight me!” She choked out, “You’re a right bastard, sure, but not… you really think that _I think_ you’re repulsive?” 

Ezra leaned back against the seat, suddenly feeling terribly faint. He could picture the abuse so clearly. It had happened, he swore it had happened. 

“Look at me, Ezra.” She held his face in her hands, and forced eye contact, “Look at me. You gotta trust me; I never said any of that.”

He suddenly felt as if he were plucked from the present moment and shoved back into his younger body, complete with all the confusion and headaches that surrounded those months. The memories of Anthony’s voice spitting out _Repulsive. Disgusting. Pathetic._ suddenly shifted, as if exhumed. He was confused again, the source of the insults terribly foggy and unclear. 

“Oh, my poor angel,” Antonia leaned against him, “You have to believe me.”

He wanted to believe her, he really, really did. And somewhere, deep down, his faith in her which had so wilted over the years began to come back to life, ever so slightly. But Ezra hardly noticed over the drumbeat of thoughts: _Anthony lies, that’s just what she does._  



	4. Chapter 4

Anthony ordered _due biglietti_ from the ticket office, and they waited around in the station for the train that would bring them to France. Ezra couldn’t shake the unnerving feeling in the pit of his stomach. A feeling that he was being watched. He glanced around at the crowds, but there were too many people to keep track of. He couldn’t examine any of them as closely as he needed to calm himself down. He tugged on Anthony’s sleeve to slow him down, and pleaded “Something’s not right, Anthony.”

Anthony scratched Ezra’s head with a reassuring smile, “Nah, everything’s fine.”

“I swear, something’s wrong.”

“I’m sorry to say, but you’re getting extremely paranoid and - oh shit!” Anthony quickly grabbed his hand. He tore through the crowds, Ezra almost toppled over at the sudden pull. 

Anthony dragged him into the nearest bathroom and locked the door. Ezra found himself slammed against the wall by a panicking Anthony.

“Shit, shit, shit. One of your MI5 friends is out there.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Shit, you tell me. Are they trying to scare us or what?”

Ezra took a breath, he knew how they worked, “They’re waiting for the right opportunity. Now, if they haven’t grabbed us yet, that means they will want to take us quietly. Stopping the train via a police order will presumably throw us into a panic and cause a public scene, possible hostage scenario, maybe even civilian casualties. That’s a huge mess to clean up, not to mention a bad look for them.”

Anthony tilted his head.

Ezra thought for a second and continued, “They want to see where we go. If we get on the train, they’ll follow and take the opportunity to quietly apprehend us without stopping the train. Limited space, limited escape routes, it’d be perfect. But, if we leave the station, they’ll also follow. Not catching us immediately, but waiting for the next opportunity we give.”

“So, you think we should leave?”

“I didn’t say that.” His eyes lit up, “In fact, I have an idea.”

***

“Our stop’s coming up.” 

Ezra snapped out of a daydream, “Is it? That was quick.”

“It really wasn’t.”

They stepped off the bus to the bustle of bikes and students roaming around. Ezra sighed. They were much like himself at that age, running around life so worried about all the wrong things. It was almost like having an out-of-body experience.

Antonia nudged him, “Familiar?”

“I went to Cambridge, dear, not Oxford.”

“Right, right. Adam’s at Christ Church College. It’s just down this road. I think you’re gonna like it; it’s just mind-blowing how posh it is. They even filmed Harry Potter here.”

“He’s a student? I thought he just lived in the city.” Ezra asked.

“Oh, yeah. You wouldn’t believe how clever he is.”

“If he’s so clever, why doesn’t he do something proper with his life?”

“When you talk to him, you’ll see. He’ll convince you.” Antonia checked the time on her phone, “He should be out of class by now.”

They walked to a grassy field sandwiched between a few exquisite buildings. There were four young adults sitting around, flipping through textbooks. Adam looked up at the two people intruding their study session and waved. 

Antonia waved back, “Heya guys! Look who I brought.”

Adam stood up, brushing some dirt off his trousers, “Is this him? He looks different,” 

“Yup,” She threw an arm around Ezra.

The girl sneered at him, “This is the guy that stabbed you?”

“He’s tougher than he looks.”

Ezra glanced sharply at Antonia and opened his mouth to chide her. Antonia hushed him, “Angel, I didn’t tell them. Pepper just happened to be in the hospital with me when it happened. And then she met Adam at university. It’s a small world.”

“Do they _all_ know what he’s planning on doing?”

“Actually, we do.” One boy said, pushing his glasses up his nose. 

“And you’re okay with it?” Ezra asked exasperatedly.

“Yeah. Adam’s got good ideas.” The other boy said.

Adam nodded, “Alright Ezra, let’s leave Pepper and Wensley and Brian to study. Has Antonia told you my plan?”

“Antonia?”

She shrugged, “What? You don’t like it?”

“I didn’t say that. You should have told me, I’ve been calling you Anthony this whole time like an idiot.”

“It’s okay, really. I use both.”

“Even so.”

Adam led them into a building that looked rather like a cathedral on the outside but turned out to be classrooms. Though, the hallway still echoed with each step, as if they were walking between the pews of a church. Adam unlocked a door, and held it open for Antonia and Ezra. He wondered how the hell he got keys for the building, but thought better than to ask.

Antonia sat herself down on one of the chairs arranged around the room. Ezra did so as well, cautiously. Adam remained standing, and he made for a pretty intimidating figure like that.

“What is this plan of yours, then?” Ezra asked.

“It might be best to start at the beginning.” And Adam began his pitch, “I was born seventeen and a half years ago, on this dying planet. I was quite young when I first learned about all the problems going on in the world. At the time, I thought that the grown-ups were handling it, because that’s what kids are always told. That the adults will sort everything out.” 

He paused, “And then I got a little older, and I learned that not enough was being done. People are still eating meat and hunting whales and using cars and throwing plastic in the ocean.”

“So, you want to assassinate everyone who uses plastic?” Ezra asked. Antonia hit his arm softly and gave him a look.

Adam charged ahead as if nothing had been said, “So, I decided to do something about that. I made a club at school that advocated for lifestyle changes. And it got a fair amount of traction at first, but soon people just… stopped caring. Subsequently, I tried organizing protests, I tried petitioning the government, I even tried praying. No one listened. I did everything that adults said that I should do, until I realised that none of it is enough. Now, I am going to do what actually needs to be done: decisive action.”

Adam clasped his hands behind his back, “I did some research with my friends. When you two killed that group of billionaires a few years back, their companies shut down. That had a ripple effect, reducing carbon emissions by a not-insignificant measure. So, I have made a list of the hundred people in the world most responsible for the destruction of the planet: one hundred lobbyists, oil company CEOs, politicians, and more.” He spoke slowly, emphasizing each word, “And I am going to kill them all.”

He smiled, “Antonia told me once that all you need to get involved in this sort of business is to be friends with the right people. And I hope I’ve found ‘em.”

***

The pair of them lingered around the station as if waiting for the following train, rather than the one that was there already. The doors began to beep, signaling the train’s imminent departure. 

“Three… two… one…” Ezra whispered. And with a squeeze of Anthony’s hand, they ran. Leaving all their luggage behind, just taking the clothes on their backs and their tickets. They leaped onto the train, just as the doors closed. 

Anthony stuck his tongue out at Sandy who was left befuddled in the station. At the next stop, they quickly switched to another line, one that terminated in a different city. And they didn’t see any MI5 agents trailing them that time.

They arrived in Nice a little worse for wear, but felt rejuvenated as soon as they stepped out of the station. The sun prickled Anthony’s skin, and somehow Ezra looked more angelic than he ever had before. Anthony didn’t know that was possible. His blond curls picked up an ethereal quality from the rays of sun. His blue eyes matched the colour of the sky, each one elevating the brightness of the other. 

Most of all, Anthony loved how happy Ezra seemed. 

Anthony brought him around to all the fancy boutiques, and got the best designer clothes for the two of them to wear while lounging on the beach, while Ezra tried to convince him to apply sunscreen. He decided to allow it once he realized how good it felt to let Ezra rub his hands up and down his back, reaching under the bikini strings. 

“This is going to be a new start for us, I can feel it. We’re free.” Ezra whispered, “We just have to keep it that way.”

Anthony moaned at the sweet press of his angel’s hands on his back. 

Ezra continued, “Promise me we won’t do any more jobs like we did. I think that’s what attracted attention in Florence.”

“We won’t do any more jobs. Whatever you want.”

“I want you to be safe. I want to protect you.”

“That’s what you’re doing right now, is it?”

Ezra pressed a kiss to the back of his head, before moving on to apply sunscreen to his arms, “Yes, dear. I’m protecting you from the sun.”

“You’re taking a lot of enjoyment out of it.”

“Hmm. I am.”

Anthony turned his head to gaze up at his angel, “I hope you’re ready for what’s going to happen the second we get home.”

“What’s that?” He said with a smile.

“I’m gonna return the favour of this massage a million times over. Hey, that could be my new job. I’d happily do that for the rest of time.”

Ezra had gotten everything he had ever wanted: waking up each day with Anthony snoring softly in his arms, all his limbs snaked around Ezra’s body. He was trapped in bed every morning until his captor woke up to untangle himself - and Anthony slept in almost every single day. Not that he minded, of course. Ezra desperately felt the need to make Anthony feel as fulfilled as he was. So, one evening he asked, “You remember when I asked you what you wanted in life, right?”

Anthony nodded.

“Your answer surprised me and fascinated me in equal measures. You said you wanted someone to watch movies with,” he gazed at him softly, “We haven’t seen a single movie together yet. Do you still want that?”

“I want _you_, angel.”

“Do you still want that too?”

“Uh… yeah, I guess.”

“Good! I’ve rented a film for us to watch. It’s my favorite film of all time!”

“Oh!” Anthony smiled, “Let’s do it.”

He quickly clicked on the TV and set everything up, then settled back on the couch, putting an arm around Anthony who curled up close. The screen faded from black to a scene of a sinister woods. The opening credits played over it, a few actors’ names seemed familiar to Anthony. And finally, austere letters appeared on the screen, revealing the title: _Silence of the Lambs._

“Wait, wait, wait. That’s what we’re watching? The cannibal movie?”

“There’s a lot more to it than that, give it a chance.”

Anthony sat up, “That’s your favorite film of all time?”

“Yes. What’s wrong?”

“I mean, I haven’t seen it but… It’s just… it’s not the most trans-positive movie, innit?”

“Oh bugger.” He paused the movie just as Jodie Foster made her appearance, “You’re absolutely right. I’m so sorry, I didn’t think - we can find something else to watch.”

“No, it’s okay. If it’s your favorite movie, then I wanna see what all the fuss is about. 

“Are you sure, dear? I don’t mind turning it off.”

“Course. As long as I can get absurdly drunk while we watch it.”

“I think I might join you.”

By the time the midpoint of the movie rolled around, they were quite buzzed, and openly chatting. Ezra had seen the film so many times he didn’t mind, in fact, he enjoyed talking about it. He knew so much about the film he was like a walking director’s commentary.

During one of the scenes where Clarice questioned Hannibal, Ezra said, “Did you know, in the books they got together.”

“Got together?”

“They became lovers.”

Anthony looked incredulous, “But… she’s gay.”

“Just because the actor is a lesbian, doesn’t make the character-”

“No, she’s gay for her friend, uhh what’s her name?”

“Ardelia?”

“Yeah, yup. That’s the one.”

“Oh. I suppose I never saw it that way.”

“She’s totally gay.”

As the credits began to roll, Anthony said, “Well, that was certainly transphobic, but aside from that, I think I get why you like this movie so much, Ezra.” He stifled a laugh, “It’s a little on the nose.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Federal investigator falls for a killer after working with him to catch a different killer. I mean… you don’t exactly need to be in the FBI to see the connections there.”

“Oh, good Lord-”

“And he’s played by an _Anthony_ Hopkins.”

Ezra tutted “It’s nothing to do with you. I’ve loved this movie since I first saw it at… perhaps too young an age.”

“And it had a profound effect.”

“It certainly killed my dream of performing magic.”

“Thank God for that.” Anthony threw himself into a kiss, before he pulled away, and said teasingly, “Though you must know, I don’t have the stomach to be a cannibal. I’m so sorry if that’s a dealbreaker for you-”

“Oh, do shut up,” Ezra pulled him back into a deep kiss.

***

“So, what do you think?” Adam asked.

Ezra stared horrified for a moment, and stormed out of the classroom. Antonia was quick to pursue. She took ahold of his arm, “Hey!” He shook her off and went on his way, “Where are you going?”

“This is not what I agreed to.”

“I asked you to help me keep Adam out of prison. And that’s what we’re gonna do.”

“This is not assassination, Anthony - Antonia. It’s terrorism. Mass murder. I will not participate.”

“Oh, so moral!” She rolled her eyes, “You’ll kill people for money, but not to save humanity.”

“This is insane, you’re insane. I cannot believe you are lecturing me on ethics. You are a…” He looked back at her, “You are a bad person, and I am not. I’m sorry.”

“This isn’t about me, love. This is about the greater good-”

“Don’t fucking talk about the greater good,” Ezra snapped. She folded slightly into herself at his tone, wincing. “I’m sorry - I’m sorry” He fumbled and backed away. 

“Come back. Please. What do I need to do to convince you?”

He took a deep breath, and stopped in his tracks, “Why do you need me, specifically? Why me? Why not… Lucy or someone else.”

“Well, Lucy hasn’t been on good terms with either Adam or me. And anyway, there’s no one else that I trust as much as you.”

“Then do it yourself, don’t involve me.”

“I can’t, I honestly can’t. I can only do so much on my own to help him learn about the art-”

“About murder, you mean.”

“Yes.” She nodded earnestly, “I can help him with that. But you know me, I’m not practical. What I can’t do is promise that he won’t be caught.”

Ezra stared at him with those intense blue eyes, “Do you remember what happened to us the last time we tried to be… together? It didn’t matter how practical I was, it was doomed from the start.”

“It’s different this time.” 

“It seems all the bloody same.”

“Hey, hey,” She grabbed his hand and squeezed, “If you really, really don’t want to, I’ll take you home tonight. But just stay for dinner. Please.”  



	5. Chapter 5

Adam treated everyone to dinner. They went to a charming, family-owned restaurant and got a private table in the corner of the room. The food came quick, the alcohol even quicker.

Antonia held out her drink the second it was placed in front of her, “To the world.” 

“To the world!” Everyone followed. Adam smiled as Ezra and Antonia clinked glasses. The other students noticed that too.

She nudged him, “How d’you like Oxford, Ezra? Does this bring you back to your dancing days?”

“Actually, I feel rather old, being surrounded by all these… no offense, all these children.”

“You poor thing,” She cooed. 

Wensley began to talk about the finalized versions of Adam’s plan before Antonia gave him a signal to shut it, “How about we talk about something else, kay?” She patted Ezra on the shoulder.

“Um, how did you two become friends?” Brian asked.

Ezra was quick to say, “She’s not my friend.”

“No, I suppose I’m not,” Antonia said.

Pepper raised an eyebrow, distinctly remembering Antonia describing Ezra as her boyfriend, “If not friends, then what?” 

Antonia said, “Ex-fiancés,” at the same time Ezra said “Business associates.” They glared at each other, the tension rising.

“We were engaged.” Antonia reminded him.

“Yes, and we did work together.”

“So… both?” Wensley said.

“No,” Ezra waved his hands in denial, “That engagement, if you must call it that, wasn’t real.”

Antonia choked on her salad, “What?”

Pepper tried to intervene before the conversation could get any worse, “So, right now I’m reading this really interesting book by Judith Butler. Have you heard of her theories on-”

Ezra continued to explain himself, “What you must understand is, though I still hold fond feelings for you, I have come to realize that I was under duress when we were together-”

“Duress! Jesus Christ.”

Wensley began to say, “You’ll never believe what I learned in my statistics class today-”

“Do you think I felt safe with you?” Ezra persisted, “There’s a reason I almost stabbed you when you entered my home yesterday.”

“You almost _what?_” Pepper’s jaw dropped, “You can’t just do that to her!”

“_I’m the nice one, I’m the good one_, yet you’re the one who always ends up hurting me. Yeah, you’re full of shit Ezra-”

Brian tried to speak up, “What do you think about the dessert options, guys? I’m quite keen on the black forest cake-”

Antonia poked Ezra in the chest, “-Besides, I know you like being in danger.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking-”

“You doo. In fact, I know you love it! Before I met you, I thought I was kinky-”

“Guys!” Adam shouted, silencing everyone, “Not over dinner, please! If you two want to argue, go do it outside.”

“Fine.” Antonia threw her napkin on the table and stood, “You coming, angel?”

He took one more sip of wine, then stood up just as harshly. 

As they walked out the door, Pepper turned to Adam, “What are you doing? They’re gonna kill each other.”

“They’ll be perfectly fine,” Adam continued his meal.

“Jesus. Someone needs to check on them. Brian, help me here?”

“Yeah alright,” he stood. Pepper and Brian walked out of the restaurant and a minute later were sheepishly rushing back inside. 

“Well?” Adam looked at them expectantly. 

“They’re snogging each other’s faces off.” Brian said, “Give me some of your chips, Pepper.”

***

A thump in the night woke Ezra up. He reached to the other side of the bed, but it was empty, cold. As his eyes and ears adjusted to being awake, he realised that Anthony was softly swearing in the corner of the room, hopping on one foot. 

“Anthony?” He mumbled, “What are you doing out of bed?”

“Just going to the loo.” He hissed, “Stubbed my toe. I’m alright, go back to sleep.”

“Do you want me to look at it?”

“No!” He said a little too firmly, “Go back to sleep now, don’t worry about me.”

“Come back to bed, dear. It’s cold without you.”

“Gotta use the loo. I’ll be back in no time.” 

Ezra fell back on the pillow, sleep beginning to overtake him. He tried to stay awake until he could wrap himself around Anthony again. But it was taking rather a long time. 

A thought suddenly struck him, waking him up almost entirely. It looked like Anthony was wearing proper clothes. Why would he get dressed to go to the toilet? 

Ezra untangled himself from the sheets. 

“Anthony?” He called out. No one responded. 

He left the room, and the entire flat was dark and empty, including the bathroom. Ezra began to panic. 

He didn’t have an ounce of will to sleep anymore. Was Anthony ever going to come back? Was this it? Was he all alone? If anyone tried to break in or kill him or arrest him, he wouldn’t have anyone to protect him. 

_Of course!_ he scolded himself, _This was just like every other lover in his life._ They all left him, in the end. They all disappeared and cheated and left without so much as a goodbye. None of them ever reciprocated his strong feelings. He had so much love to give, so much that it hurt, but no one wanted it. 

Ezra waited on the couch until about an hour later, Anthony tried to slip through the front door unnoticed. It was a move that was all to familiar ro Ezra.

He snapped, “Where have you been?”

Anthony jumped back, almost darting out the door, “Don’t scare me like that.”

“What have you been doing out there?” Ezra’s mind raced with the terrible possibilities. 

He sighed, and leaned against the wall, before he admitted what had perhaps been one of the worst things on Ezra’s mind, “I’m making money.”

“You lied to me.”

“Yeah, well. I knew you’d get like this.”

“Because you said you would stop!”

“Where did you think all the money was coming from? I’m funding this flat and your clothes and the food on the table. What I do is the only reason we can live like this,” 

Ezra had been too busy enjoying the lifestyle to consider its source. He didn’t know how much they had made from the job in Florence, but he supposed that they were still floating on that. Now that he thought about it, Anthony must have blown through that in an instant, with all the nice things he bought for him. 

He walked up to Anthony, and pressed their foreheads together. He shuddered at the coppery smell of blood that lingered on him, “Tell me you won’t do that anymore. We can’t risk it. Promise me.”

“I-I can’t do anything else. This is the only thing I’m good at.”

Ezra shook his head, “That is not true, not true at all. If you just tried-”

“I told you that if you want this - if you want me, you’re going to be in danger. If you don’t want to get blood on your hands, then that’s fine. I can do it all.”

Ezra looked him up and down, “That’s so much worse. If you go alone, then I can’t protect you.” 

“But-”

“What if you had died out there! What if you got arrested!”

“I wouldn’t-”

“You’ve never done it alone before; you always had someone looking out for you. And now, I’ve taken on that job. You can’t just put yourself at risk without my knowledge. I- I won’t allow it.”

“I don’t see what you’re getting so worked up about. I’ve done this for years, I think I can handle a few simple contract kills-”

“Imagine what that would have done to me if you’d gotten hurt. Please, try to understand, I would have been devastated,” He stared into Anthony’s indignant eyes, and began to shake his head, “You’re still not getting it, are you?”

He got dressed, ignoring Anthony’s protests, and left the flat. 

***

They didn’t go back to the restaurant. Instead, they went to Antonia’s place in town. 

Ezra lazily traced a hand up and down Antonia’s bare chest. Refamiliarizing himself with every little detail that he had forgotten, and examining all the bite marks he had left, “When you take me home tonight, can you… can you stay?”

Antonia sighed, “I can’t. I need to be here.”

“You’ve really changed,” Ezra kissed her inked temple, “You never would have turned me down before. As I recall, you promised me anything I wanted.”

“Eh, a lot’s happened.”

“Why do you want to help him so bad?”

“He’s going to do so much good for the world. I honestly never cared about this stuff, you know, I thought I’d be long dead by now. But we have a chance to make a difference in the world. Isn’t that amazing?”

“That’s all well and good, dear,” Ezra pinned him down with a stare, “But I know that’s not the real reason.”

“Honestly, I think it’s-”

“Anthony.” Ezra interrupted, “You don’t care about the good of humanity. You don’t have to pretend in front of me. What’s the real reason?”

“I just - ngk, I owe him my life, okay?”

“What on Earth does that mean?” 

“It means exactly that.”

“You traded your soul away, signed a contract in blood, what?”

She scrunched up her nose, “So, there’s something I didn’t tell you about… about what I’ve been doing.”

“I noticed you haven’t been very forthright,”

“Hah, yeah, well…” she babbled, “I - er - I got sent to prison again.”

He pushed himself up onto his elbows, “You were in _prison?_ Oh my God… That’s why-”

“That’s why I stopped sending things, yes.”

“When were you released?”

“Officially, it was supposed to be in fifteen years time. But, I escaped about a month ago.”

“You were given twenty years? Dear God. How did you manage to get out?”

She recounted how her cell door was abruptly opened in the dead of night. “Get up.” The guard ordered. He obeyed, and was quickly shoved against the wall. The gruff man yanked his arms back and handcuffed him. He led him away.

“Where are you taking me-”

“Quiet.”

He was too tired to deal with this. He let himself be dragged away, and only vaguely wondered where he was being sent. To solitary confinement? To be beaten senselessly? To be transferred to a worse prison? Who knew? 

They shoved him into the back of a van, and it drove off. An hour passed, or so it felt. No one would talk to him, and there wasn’t even a window that he could look out of. With a screech of tires, Anthony was almost thrown out of his seat. The guard keeping an eye on him suddenly pulled him to his feet, and unlocked his handcuffs. The back of the van swung open. Rough hands shoved him to the dirt road, and the van drove off without him.

_What the fuck?_

He was standing in the middle of nowhere, he had nothing but his grey prison uniform. A low rumble began to growl from over the horizon. A motorbike appeared, and slowed down for him. The man driving put the kickstand down and stared at him from under the helmet, “Need a ride?”

“Uh… yeah.”

“Wait a sec,” He said, pulling his backpack around where he could reach into it, “This is for you. Hide your prison kit and all that.” He held out a black bomber jacket and sunglasses.

Anthony took them cautiously, “D-do I know you?”

He flipped the visor up, “Yeah. I’m a friend,”

“Adam…?”

“Hop on.”

A smile crept across his face. He threw on the jacket and glasses, and sat behind him. He had missed the feeling of the wind rushing through his hair. He had missed the feeling of wind full stop. And, fuck, had the world smelled this good before?

Antonia said, “He broke me out, made the records say that I died, and pitched his plan to me. I still don’t quite know how the fuck he pulled that off, but I’m in his debt.”

“I see.” Ezra breathed.

Antonia crawled into his arms, “And, in case you were wondering, that’s why I had to have a change. You know, five years in a male prison takes a toll.” 

“No need to explain. I am enamoured with you no matter your name or presentation.”

_Please God or anyone, don’t let this end so soon._ She hummed against his shoulder, “Will you stay the night?”

“Of course.”

***

Leaving the flat, he stormed off to a bar. There, Ezra discovered that his French was better when he was drunk. After he downed one glass, the next orders rolled smoothly off his tongue. He wondered if perhaps the French were always drunk, and that’s how they could speak like they do. 

He could feel Anthony watching. He knew he was there. Ezra would make him feel the way that he felt knowing he was going out and putting himself in danger. 

Ezra walked around the streets, without rest, continuing even as the nightlife began to die down. Flashing the expensive clothes and watch that Anthony had purchased for him. Getting offensively drunk all the while. He took large, burning gulps, which on his empty stomach, more than sufficed for the job.

The world began to spin, and he leaned against a streetlight for support. Dear Lord, he didn’t think he’d ever been this drunk in his life. It felt as if his limbs were taking an extra few seconds to move after his brain commanded them to. But even his thoughts were slower too. Going from one cognition to the next seemed to take a winding path around his mind, dithering from here to there. All in all, he felt like a fish swimming through molasses. 

That was why it took his shoulder a good few seconds to tell his brain that someone had placed a hand there, and his ears took a few moments to register the sounds of French being thrown his way. He didn’t understand a word, but regardless he was too confident in his ability to talk his way out. 

“Bonjour, bonsoir…. Nuit?” He mumbled, already thinking he was nailing this, “Que-ce que -- ce que vous veut? I mean… voulez?”

A couple men cornered him and spoke in a very commanding tone, and he couldn’t really work out what they were talking about. 

“Excusez-moi, messieurs. I must… Erm… partir.” He tried to push his way past, but one of them whipped out a pocket knife. Oh dear. 

He held his hands up, and began to babble, “C-cette une grande mistake… er … erreur. You see, je suis un de… MI5, erm, un policier. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. I mean, j’etais un policier-”

He vaguely interpreted their barking orders as something to do with money. Though it was more of a guess than anything. He wasn’t scared of muggers, he knew they were all deep down cowardly bastards just putting on a show of toughness. So, he put his foot down.

“Right, right. You see, I-I don’t want to give you any money. Just - oh - give me one second… Je ne veux rien vous donner.” Carefully enunciating each word

They were clearly getting frustrated. He was getting several incredulous looks by now, and a few more threatening gestures. 

“Je n’ai pas de peur,” he added, for good measure. 

And with that, they took ahold of him, quickly tying his hands behind his back and covering his mouth, leading him away. 

Oh bugger, these were kidnappers, not muggers.   



	6. Chapter 6

Of course he’d be kidnapped, of course. He seemed like a rich tourist after all. He had felt like he was being watched the whole night, what if it was them and not Anthony? What if he stayed behind in the flat and left Ezra to his own devices? Oh Christ, he really bungled things up this time.

Ezra squirmed to escape the kidnappers’ grasp, but he was far too drunk to make any significant progress in escaping. He stomped on one of their feet, and was punished with a quick shove. He was lead down an alley, where a car was waiting for him. They threw him in the boot. In the cramped and pitch dark, he started to cry; he may have been looking for trouble, but now he was in over his head.

The car doors opened, then slammed closed as the kidnappers got in the car. Suddenly he heard yelling. Muffled screaming and strange noises. Were they fighting? The car was shaking with the struggling.

A familiar voice drawled, “Word to the wise: don’t leave your car unlocked around these parts. You never know who’s lurking around.” _Anthony!_

The trunk opened, and he was standing there, haloed by a street light. He undid the gag, untied his hands, and softly helped him step out of the trunk. The whole time, Ezra couldn’t take his eyes off Anthony’s face. His beautiful face. 

“What were you doing in there?” Anthony asked, trying very hard to seem annoyed, but only coming across as amused.

“I - I don’t know.”

He brushed away one of Ezra’s tears with a look of concern ever so present on his face, “Did you think I wasn’t gonna save you? No matter what happens, I’ll always be there for you. You’ll always be safe with me.”

“You’re an angel…” Ezra slurred and threw his arms around Anthony. Hugging him as tightly as he could. Words could not express his gratitude, so he showed it in kisses, planting dozens all over Crowley’s face and neck. Anthony was drowning in the love. He could do nothing but close his eyes and accept it. 

It was only when Ezra dropped to his knees that he stopped him.

“No no, we gotta leave.” Anthony laughed, trying to pull him back to standing, “Maybe later, love.”

“Please-” he begged. 

“Let’s get you home,”

They couldn’t keep their hands off one another the whole way back. Kissing each other every chance they could get. 

The second they stepped through the threshold of their flat, Anthony whispered between deep breaths, “If you don’t want me to, I won’t work anymore. Whatever you want.”

“Really?” Ezra beamed and began to run his hands up and down Anthony’s back.

“I’ll get a proper job, okay?”

“Good,” He kissed his red cheek, “I love you.”

***

Ezra roused to a few muffled whispers. The scene that greeted him as he sat up made him chuckle. Antonia was there, with her hair tied up in a bun and a green spray bottle in one hand. She was threatening the potted ficus, pointing at it harshly as if it were a disobedient child before spraying it with a little water. No wonder her first instinct was to say that she was a mother. 

_”I told you to be on your best behavior, and what do I find this morning? You know what you did, don’t give me that. Your leaves were drooping, you useless, little-” _

Though perhaps not what you’d call a good mother. 

Antonia took a double take back at Ezra, and turned red when she caught him watching, “Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything, dear.”

“You were laughing,”

“You were being funny,”

She slammed the spray bottle down by the plant and let out a groan of frustration. She flopped herself down on the bed, landing on Ezra’s legs, “Come on, get dressed. I’ll escort you home.”

“Are you alright?” Ezra combed his fingers through her hair.

“I’m fine,” she snapped.

“You don’t seem fine.”

“Let’s just get you home.”

“In order for me to get up, you would have to stop laying on my lap.”

“Urghhhh” was all she could get herself to say.

“What’s wrong?”

She twisted her head to look up at him, “If you insist on talking about it, I had a bad dream,” 

“I’m sorry.” He said softly, “What was it about?”

“Err…” Her hands gripped onto him tightly, “It was about when we got caught. But it was happening to Adam too. And I… I couldn’t move or yell or do anything to help either of you. I just felt so fucking useless, watching you both be carried away.”

“Do you dream about that often?”

“Mmhm. Think about it too.” 

“Do you really?”

“Yeah,” she admitted, “I’ve never seen you look so scared before or since.”

“I was scared for you.”

Antonia’s heart fluttered, “Were you really?”

He nodded, “But, we’re okay now. That won’t happen again.”

“You can’t promise that. You’ll leave and I’ll be stuck working this out on my own. How am I supposed to stop that happening to Adam?”

“You won’t be doing it alone,” Ezra sighed, “I suppose I don’t want him to go through what we did. It was horrid enough for the two of us.” What went unspoken was, _I don’t want you to go through that again._

***

Ordinarily, no matter which side of the spectrum she leaned towards on any given day, Anthony still looked a touch androgynous. But, when she decided to take Ezra dancing, she went full out, dressing in black satin and a face full of makeup. Ezra had never seen her look so stunningly feminine before. Everything, from the way she walked to the way she spoke carried something so powerful. Her lipstick in particular made Ezra’s stomach do flips. He had never found himself so attracted to a woman before. It’s because she was Anthony. 

“I’ve got a surprise for you,” She had promised at the beginning of the night, “But you’ll have to wait for it.” She continued to tease him with it for hours, never giving it away. Ezra couldn’t imagine what it was, how expensive it was, if she was playing so coy about it. 

It was all too much. All so fast. Ezra’s head was spinning, as he was led down the street. The light from the clubs and storefronts gave him a few glimpses at Anthony, but nothing more. This was everything he’d ever wanted in life, everything he’d ever dreamed of. And it still wasn’t enough.

“Soon I’ll buy a car. A nice, vintage one - and we’ll never have to walk this far again,” Anthony said, holding her heels in her hands. 

“I don’t mind walking so much. Besides, if we get a car I’ll be the one driving.”

“Not in a million years,” She pointed to one of the various nightclubs dotted along the street, “Ah! There’s the place!”

Of course this would be the place she chose. The sign out front called it _Le Paradis Terrestre_ \- Heaven on Earth. Another name for Eden.

She pulled him out onto the dance floor, pressing up close to him. Their hands ran over each other. The music pulled them into movement, though neither of them danced particularly gracefully. Ezra’s dance was as stiff as Anthony’s was loose. 

“You haven’t done anything like this for a while, have you?” Anthony whispered in his ear. 

“Not since university.”

“Let me tempt you,” Anthony rested her arms on his shoulders, and kissed the sensitive spot next to his ear, “You’re so tense. I can help you relax.”

Ezra’s hand moved, though not of his own volition, to curl itself up in her hair. She quickly stopped him, “Hey, this is a wig remember?”

“Sorry-”

“Would you like it if I grew my hair out?”

Ezra answered that with a kiss.

With a delicious roll of her hips, Ezra began to melt into the moment. They were pulled together by a gravitational force, unable to fall apart. They danced not to the music, nor to the movements of those around them. They danced to the beat of their own hearts, blood pooling in their cheeks. They danced until they couldn’t any longer. When they had totally worn themselves out, they took a cab home at Anthony’s insistence.

Anthony promised a surprise, and oh, had Ezra been surprised. 

When they got back to the flat, a bottle of champagne was waiting for them, as well as a small poster with some kind of colourful design on it.

“What’s this? It says… une piece?”

“_Pièce_,” Anthony corrected him, “Pièce. It means a play,”

Ezra gasped. Looked at Anthony, who was blushing, head low, leaning back against the wall for support. 

“Is this…”

“My new job, I suppose. It hardly pays anything, but I thought it would be fun. So I auditioned, and… I-I got a part.” She hid her face, “Let’s see how long it takes for them to figure out I’m an English bloke and not a French woman-”

Ezra was completely overtaken with emotion. His chest burst with joy and pure love. He had a surprise of his own up his sleeve.

“Marry me,” Ezra threw himself to his knees. Anthony almost passed out. 

Marriage. Holy unions. Matrimony and all that rubbish. She had never even considered it. But, as Ezra knelt down and held her hand like it was something to be worshiped, she realised she’d never wanted anything more in her life.

“Fuck yes, angel. A million times, yes!” Anthony threw herself onto him, collapsing the two of them to the floor. She tore their clothes off as quickly as possible. 

Just as she was building up the right amount of speed, the hands on her hips held her fast. She protested with a groan.

“Go slower,” Ezra whispered.

“Nghh,” she couldn’t say anything more coherent than that. Anthony tried to move her body faster, tried to escape his grip. _Faster_ Anthony screamed with every tug of Ezra’s hair, _harder_ she begged with her half-lidded eyes. 

But Ezra flipped them over, and went at his own slow pace while Anthony stared up at him. Ezra was lost in those honey-colored eyes, so wide and accepting. He built up the slow pleasure, making it last, making it _good._

Anthony had always just taken what she wanted. It was fun, quick, and cheaply satisfying the way a bag of crisps satisfied hunger. Just enough to stop her hunger for a bit. She had never had it served to her like a four-course meal, taking her time to savour every second as they built up to the big finish. She felt whole. Totally satisfied.

In the weeks that followed, they never wanted to leave their flat again, no matter how beautiful the Nice weather was or how tempting the local restaurants were. They were perfectly content to shut themselves away from the rest of the world. 

Ezra could gaze into Anthony’s face for the rest of time. It was so different to be looking at him in the flesh rather than the mugshot he had to make do with for so long, all of the microexpressions on his face flashing his happiness and admiration. His golden eyes stared back with just as much fascination, and he wondered what Anthony was picking up from his own expression. 

Someone knocked at the door. 

“Can you get it, my dear. It’s probably a doorstep seller,” 

“Course. I’ll tell ‘em to fuck right off.” Anthony pecked his cheek before climbing out of bed. He threw on a robe and went to answer the door. 

Ezra nuzzled his face into the pillow, awaiting his return. He didn’t listen to the muffled voices in the other room. 

Anthony applied the chain lock before opening the door, “On n’veut rien, alors va te faire foutre-”

The blonde woman at the door stared at him with a puzzled expression. She didn’t look like she was selling anything.

“Qui es-tu?” He said, looking her up and down.

“I’m so sorry, do you speak English?” She had a properly posh accent, “Erm… parlez-vous-”

“Yeah. What d’you want?”

“Oh good! I’m not sure if I have the right flat or not-”

“Obviously not.” He began to shut the door. She quickly threw out a hand to stop him. 

“Wait- wait one second!”

He stopped, glared at her, “What?”

“My name is Evelyn Fell. Is my brother Ezra here?”  



	7. Chapter 7

His first instinct was to slam the door shut, grab Ezra’s hand, and run away to the next city. But, shit, she did look a lot like him. He just stared at her through the crack of the door, his brain just about broken. 

Behind him, “Love? What’s taking so long?” 

The female version of Ezra spoke again, “I can hear him in there. Excuse me, whoever you are, will you let me in?”

Anthony shut the door, undid the chain, and swung it wide open so that Ezra could see who was standing on the welcome mat.

“Good Lord. Eve?” He huffed out a laugh, “Eve, is that really you?”

“It’s really me.”

“Gosh, how long has it been?”

“Far too long. Is this… Noah?”

“No,” he shook his head and looked desperately at Anthony, “Heavens no. Noah and I split up ages ago. This is Anthony. Anthony, this is my sister, Eve.”

Anthony held out his hand, “I’m his fiancé.”

She squeezed a polite smile on her face and shook his hand, “Charmed, I’m sure.”

He smirked back, “You know, he’s never mentioned a sister. Do you think I should take that as a red flag?”

“We haven’t exactly been on good terms,” Ezra said quickly. 

She turned back to her brother, “That’s why I’ve come here. I owe you an apology.”

“An apology?” The air left his lungs. That was the last thing he expected to hear.

She walked up to him, “We need to have a big chat, can we speak in private?” She gestured towards the redhead.

“Oh -- of course. Anthony, you don’t mind do you?”

“I can entertain myself for a couple of hours, let me get dressed and I’ll be off,” Anthony responded and began to head to the bedroom.

“Oh thank you so much, dear. I’ll put on the kettle, shall I?”

“That would be lovely,” She responded. She eyed Anthony cautiously as he sauntered out the front door. Ezra brought in two cups of tea.

“So… what did you want to chat about?”

“I have a daughter now. Sarah.”

“Your parents must be happy.”

“Actually, they passed away.”

“Oh.” He choked down a gulp of his drink so he wouldn’t say _good riddance_. To be honest, he had suspected that they had died years earlier. They certainly never tried to make any form of contact. 

She frowned, “You don’t seem too sad about it.”

“I can’t say that I am.”

“That’s a little heartless, Ezra. They were still our mum and dad.”

Ezra reflected: after all these years, Eve was still the same. Having explained this so many times, he thought she might have finally understood, but apparently not, “They didn’t consider me family; I simply thought the same of them.”

“Do you want to know how they died?”

“Not particularly,”

She sighed, “You’re still upset about their traditional views… You should know, our father would have come around to it eventually if you hadn’t been so emotional,”

“Oh, I’m too emotional? They never even tried to accept who I am. And, if I recall correctly, neither did you.”

“I’m sorry.” 

He wanted to believe that she was being genuine. But he wasn’t sure if he could, “Is that all you have to say?”

“No. I wanted to propose something.”

“Go on.”

“I still believe that all children should have female and male role models,”

Ezra rolled his eyes. He considered explaining why that wouldn’t be a problem with him and Anthony, if for no other reason than to shock her. 

She continued, “and since my divorce, I thought it would be nice for Sarah to have her uncle around,”

He stared at her. _Oh._

“What I’m saying is, it would be lovely if you could get over whatever nervous breakdown you’re in the middle of and come home already.”

“I am not breaking down.” He said as calmly as he could.

“Quitting your job, running off to France, getting engaged with this _Anthony_… It sounds like what you usually do when things get to be a bit much. Don’t forget what happened in your last year of secondary school.”

“That was ages ago-”

“And you still haven’t learned your lesson, apparently. How long have you known this guy, even?”

“I love him.”

“You don’t. Come on, leave all this nonsense behind, get back to normalcy.”

“I-I have never been normal.” He clasped his hands together, “I have never been normal in my life. And I’m only now realizing that it’s okay.”

She glared at him, “This is insane, Ezra.”

“On the contrary, I feel more sane than I ever have before.”

She huffed, and rolled her eyes in the way she always did, “You need to come back to London, for your own good.”

“No, you do not get to tell me what’s good for me.”

“Your flight’s already booked.” 

“How very presumptuous of you. What were you expecting to accomplish with that? I am an adult, you can’t just drag me away.”

“It’s just…We hadn’t spoken to each other since those blasted arguments,” A troubled look fell over her, “I got scared. You were missing for so long, and the police questioned me so many times.”

Ezra froze, “I am still missing. How… how did you find me before the police did?”

“I didn’t.” She avoided meeting his gaze.

“Oh,” He gasped, “you wouldn’t dare…”

“They said that you did something bad, but if I could convince you to return-”

“I can’t believe it!” 

“If I could convince him to leave the flat-”

“My own bloody sister,” Ezra knocked over his drink in his scramble to stand up, “You set me up.” He flew to the kitchen counter, and picked up a chef’s knife. 

A flash of fear crossed Eve’s face, “Nothing I said was untrue,”

He was already on his way out, shoving his way to the sidewalk. He prayed that it wasn’t too late already.

Anthony was loitering around near the building, reflecting on Eve. Whatever had happened between them obviously wasn’t good, and he didn’t get good vibes from her. 

If she tried anything, God help her.

Someone bumped against him, and he turned to snap at them. He was quickly shut up when a gun was pointed at his face, “What the fuck-”

They growled, “Be quiet, come with me, and your friend won’t see your brains splattered all over the pavement.”

“Ngk.” 

The assassin practically threw him down the nearest alleyway. The gun was pressed hard against his upper back. 

“He’s not here to protect you now, is he?” They twisted Anthony’s arm back as he led him away. He tried to dig his heels in the ground.

“Come on - Aghh” They choked out a sound, their gun was wrenched away from them. 

Antony peeked over his shoulder and his mouth fell open in shock.

The fire was burning in Ezra. He had been backstabbed. He channeled all that fury into throwing his knife forward. Ezra sank his knife into him again and again, hearing the strangled scream that someone let out. Anthony had never seen Ezra look like that before -- he looked totally gone, not a trace of uncertainty remained on his features. The three of them fell to the ground and his attack slowed. 

Ezra unhanded the knife and crawled back, hyperventilating. 

The assassin was still alive, though they wouldn’t be for much longer. Anthony’s face twitched and he knelt down next to them. Wrestled a syringe out of his jacket pocket, and plunged its contents into them. They stopped moving.

“To make sure,” he supplied. Then taking a shaking glance down to the body, he saw the handle sticking out their back, “Was that… was that a kitchen knife?”

Ezra nodded quickly.

“Fuck.” He said breathlessly.

“Are you hurt?” His hands were frantic, examining all over Anthony. 

“I’m fine, love.”

“She said she was working with the police-”

“No, that guy was an assassin, not a cop. They must have bribed her or tricked her.”

Ezra’s eyes were wide, “I can’t believe it…”

“We need to leave, right now.”

“Agreed.” Ezra glanced him up and down, “Spain is lovely this time of year.”

***

Adam didn’t look up from his book when Antonia and Ezra entered the room, hand-in-hand.

“Adam,” Ezra cleared his throat, “I will help you.”

“_We_ will help you,” Antonia corrected.

“Yes. We.” Ezra smiled.

Adam hardly seemed surprised, “You changed your mind.”

He nodded assuredly.

“How do I know you won’t change your mind again?”

“Oh, erm…” Antonia said, giving a worried squeeze to his hand, “I vouch for him. You trust me, don’t you-?”

Adam held up a finger to silence her, “You said you could convince him, yet he shows up unconvinced. I told you I didn’t want anyone wishy-washy.”

Ezra shuddered at the ruthless efficiency in his voice. He was nothing like the little boy that Antonia held hostage at the Ritz. Gun pointed to his head. Now it was clear, Adam was the one with a gun, metaphorically at least. “If I may-” Ezra began.

“I don’t think you’re the person I’m looking for.”

“Listen to me.” Ezra pleaded, “You’re young and confident, you think you know what you’re getting into. But, let me tell you, you don’t have a clue.”

“Ezra…” Antonia cautioned.

“Let me speak.” He snapped, “You think you’re going to be a vigilante, is that right? You think you’re going to save the world? It’s not like that. Adam, this will destroy you if you’re not careful. I can see you’re very motivated, but that’s not enough to survive.”

Ezra could see the thoughts racing behind Adam’s eyes. But other than that, his face gave nothing away. 

“You don’t have to do this.” Ezra said, “Honestly. You still have a chance to turn away.”

“Easy for you to say,” Adam responded.

“You have to know the real consequences,” Ezra’s tone was deadly serious, “Has she told you everything that happened to us?”

“Ezra, please-” Antonia tried to hold him back.

“You should know what happened to us before you even touch a weapon. What could - and probably will - happen to you if you go through with your little plan.”

“Go on. Tell me.” Adam said. 

***

They had almost been separated, the most terrifying thought. As the realisation settled in, a strange shadow of something passed over Anthony’s face.

Nonchalantly, they began to make their way out of the city. Ezra had carefully warned him that they wouldn’t let them slip away again. They had to get out as quick and unnoticed as they could. And they couldn’t stop looking around for even a second lest they miss someone who might be prepared to ambush them at any time. 

“Hey, angel?” Anthony said.

“Yes?”

“We had a close call back there,”

“Yes, we did.”

“In light of those events, erm, there’s something I need to ask you,”

Ezra nodded, not quite picking up Anthony’s morbid tone.

“This whole marriage thing: it’s great. Honestly, it’s so great. It’s the best thing that has ever happened to me. But, what if it all goes… pear-shaped-”

“I like pears.” Ezra murmured checking over his shoulder once again.

“If it all goes wrong, I mean. I want you to…”

Ezra straightened up, brows furrowing in confusion.

“I want you to kill me.”

“W-what? Are you joking? No - I’m not going to do that.” He looked Anthony right in the eyes, and they stopped walking.

“I’ll do anything for you, anything you ask, but you just gotta promise me this-”

“No. Absolutely not. Why would you ask me such a thing?” 

Anthony shifted his gaze down, “I’ve tried to off myself in the past and I just can’t bring myself to - I need someone to do it for me. Only if, you know, things go wrong.”

“Dear God, you’ve tried in the past? No, I mean, I would never want to do that to you - why?” he babbled.

“I don’t want to die at the hands of a trigger-happy police officer or in a prison fight or by an assassin. I need to go on my own terms.”

Ezra took a few breaths, “I’m saying no, Anthony.”

“I’m giving myself to you completely… and you just say no?”

“I didn’t ask for you to give yourself to me.”

“You chose me over everyone else. You asked me to marry you. _You chose this!_” He shouted. The tone was overly familiar to Ezra. The words were different, but it was the same indignance that any psychopath would display at the first sign that things wouldn’t go exactly the way they wanted.

And that flicked a switch in Ezra’s head: this wasn’t normal, this was insane, “What am I doing? What the hell am I doing here? You… you’re just a psychopath that started following me around.”

Anthony looked as though he’d just been struck, “Is that all you think of me as, after all we’ve been through?”

“How can I think of you as anything else when you keep reminding me of what you really are. I keep holding out faith that you can be better, but this… this death follows us wherever we go.”

Meanwhile, the scar on Anthony’s stomach twinged, reminding him who Ezra really was, “I am a person, you know, not just a label.”

“No matter what, you’re still going to be afflicted with psychopathy. No matter what you or I or anyone does. And it’s going to affect every action you take. I… I can’t trust you.”

That twisted the knife. Anthony took a step back, trying to hide his tears, “You know what? Fuck you. I don’t need you.”

“The feeling is mutual.” Ezra spat out. He pulled back as well. Anger blossoming up in his chest. He spun around, ready to go anywhere else. But, he was all alone in the world, he had no one. 

“I’m sorry-” He began. But when he looked back, Anthony was being wrestled to the ground.

He began to shout, “Someone help-!”

A sharp pain emanated from his leg as a baton came down hard on the back of his knee. He let out a strangled scream and fell. He felt someone kneel on his back squeezing the breath out of his lungs. His arms were wrenched behind his back and clicked into handcuffs. 

The pavement scraped his cheek as he turned to look at Anthony who was thrashing against the hands on him. Their eyes met. A pair of familiar shoes walked into his line of sight, between him and Anthony. Ezra strained his neck to look up. 

“Ezra Fell.” Uriel said, “I’m sorry to break up such a touching moment.”

He heard another familiar voice behind him, “I can’t wait to get my hands on you,” Sandy said in a chilling, contemptuous tone. All of a sudden, something hit him painfully on the side. Sandy had kicked him. 

“Stop it!” Anthony shrieked, “Don’t touch him!” 

Uriel almost yanked Ezra’s arm out of his socket pulling him to his feet, shouting his rights to silence in his ear. He was shoved forward, the grip on his arm the only reason he stayed upright. He managed one last glance back at Anthony before being thrown into an unmarked car.

The last thing he heard from Anthony, “Whatever happens, I’ll find you!”  



	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cw: this chapter is really abusive :(

The image of Ezra being dragged away burned itself into Anthony’s head. They were stealing him, wrenching Anthony’s heart right out of his chest in the process. 

“Bastards! All of you!” He screamed, voice cracking. He squirmed against the grip they held, as much as he could, but Ezra was gone and so was all of his will to fight. They lifted his limp body off the ground and dragged him towards another car. He tumbled into the backseat, his handcuffed hands unable to catch his fall right into someone’s lap. He scrambled up and backed as far as he could against the car door. Folding his legs up protectively. 

“It’s just me, darling.” Lucy cooed, “Give me your hands, I’ll take you out of those things.”

Anthony’s chest heaved up and down. He didn’t move. She touched his cheek, where his tears were causing a scrape to sting terribly. 

“Oh, I’m sorry they had to use such a rough hand. But, the show must go on, as they say. It all had to seem real.”

“Ezra.” He whispered, “What about him?”

She shushed him, and moved him around so that she could reach his handcuffs. With a couple clicks, he was freed. She took his hands in hers and rubbed the sore marks left on his wrists. 

“You’re working for us again. Things can go back to the way they were.”

“But… Ezra?”

“He’s where he belongs, and you’re where you belong.”

“But I don’t want to - to work. I quit.”

A laugh was slowly drawn out of her chest, “You’ll need money eventually, my darling. Do you think you can do anything else? Imagine you stuck behind the counter of a clothes shop, or waiting tables. You’d be bored out of your mind.”

“Ngh.”

He felt an arm wrap around him, “You’re so lucky I came to get you. You’ve had your fun, but you needed a splash of cold water to bring you back to reality.”

Anthony let himself lean against her as the car started to move. 

Her voice was low, “It wasn’t meant to work out, it was doomed to fall apart from the very start. You’re lucky I saved you before you got hurt. Before he hurt you.”

*

Tears were torn from his eyes as the car drove far away, over bumpy roads. Ezra’s mind searched for a solution, any single solution. He might be able to reach his lockpick, but then what? Even if he uncuffed himself, the car doors would doubtless be unable to be opened from the inside. And even if they could, what then? Jump out of a moving car, break a leg, then get caught again, with perhaps more roughhousing than before. Be slapped with an additional resisting arrest charge too. 

So he could do nothing except pray that Anthony went willingly, and that he hadn’t ended up shot in the town square. The image haunted him the whole car ride.

The cuffs dug at his wrists. He was left at an interrogation table in what he suspected was a French police station that they were borrowing. He was alone with his thoughts, meant to contemplate all the potentialities. All the things that could hurt worse than handcuffs. 

The physical pain perhaps he could handle. The psychological torment on the other hand… They would gaslight him, lie to him, say and do anything that could get him to confess. And how long was he to be left without any human interaction? Solitary confinement could take his mind and twist it into something unrecognizable if he was left long enough. He just had to keep his wits about him, just for the time being. 

Michael came into the room and sat down, placing her hands on the desk with the air of a disappointed teacher. 

He kept his posture, and wouldn’t let the intimidation tactics work, “Where am I?”

“That’s none of your concern. Where you are right now is immaterial. Instead, you should be worried about your future, and whether you will have one at all.”

“I assume I am to be extradited back to England.”

But she would not confirm or deny. She was the one interrogating, not him, “Tell us everything that happened.” Her words had a cool tone that only just hinted at the threats that lay ahead. 

Ezra pursed his lips. He would not give them anything if he could help it.

She shook her head, “You’re smarter than this, Ezra. Can’t you see? If you don’t talk, you’re only going to look guilty. The others wanted to jump straight to harsher methods, but I convinced them that you would be reasonable. We’re - I’m giving you a chance to repent.”

She paused, letting the quiet hang in the air, before adding, “I know you. I know you wouldn’t do anything to harm anyone. So please, just tell us what happened.”

“I have a right to silence, and I plan on exercising it,” Ezra spoke softly. 

She looked almost genuinely troubled, “You are going to regret that. I’m very sorry for what is about to occur.” Carefully, she picked herself up and padded out of the room. 

Ezra let out a breath as soon as she was out of sight and alone once again. Though his experience told him he wasn’t actually ever alone in this cramped room. Surely there would be cameras, and people on the other side of those cameras. 

After about ten minutes, Uriel entered the room. They sneered down at him as if he were less than nothing. 

“So. Michael tells me that you don’t plan on talking?” 

Ezra remained quiet to confirm. 

“I bet you think you’re so brave, don’t you? Standing up for your boyfriend. Protecting him.” Uriel leaned over the table, “You need to protect yourself first. He doesn’t care about you.”

_It’s not true,_ he reminded himself. 

“I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that I’m lying to you. We’ve worked side-by-side for years, how dare you think that I would lie to you. Do you really think so low of me?”

They put a hand on his shoulder, forcing him back in the chair, “You don’t know what we’re capable of Ezra. Sure, you’ve seen what we can do to criminals in interrogation rooms. But, here’s the thing; we know so much more about you than we do any random killer.”

His stomach began to sink as he realized what he was about to face. 

“But there’s no need to resort to that, is there? Because you’re going to cooperate. Michael told us you’d be reasonable. Don’t make her into a liar.”

Never in a million years would he cooperate. They could humiliate him all they liked, and he would never talk. He still had the power here, otherwise why would they be questioning him? They must not be able to convict with the evidence they had, and they needed his testimony for something. He didn’t know exactly what they were looking for, but whatever it was, he would never tell them. 

“Now, what sort of relationship do you have with Crowley?”

Say nothing. Give nothing away. He just looked up at them defiantly. 

Uriel smiled, “It’s alright, we already know everything that occurred between you two. We read all your poems. Everything you wanted to do to him, it’s all there. So repulsive.”

He blinked. They couldn’t have-

“Yes, Ezra, we combed through your flat. You’ve got nothing left to hide. You might as well come clean.”

So what, they had everything, so what? He refused to do anything that would help them.

“I’ll bet you’re regretting ever crossing us.” Uriel gave a cold smirk, “So pathetic. You’ll give yourself up to anyone, won’t you? Anyone who even looks at you. We know about Noah and Oscar and all your other exes, and we have their messages. Do you want me to read them out to you?” 

Ezra stayed silent.

“This’ll be fun then, Listen to this: ‘I’m not looking for something serious,’ ‘You’re too much for me right now,’ their words, not mine. And, wow, some of them just… stopped talking to you one day, no explanation.”

That stung. He couldn’t keep an unaffected face. 

“You throw yourself at them, so desperate for love. So needy. No wonder you tried to find a relationship in an insane stalker,” they wrinkled their nose in a look of disgust, “You want someone to be utterly obsessed with you. He wasn’t even the first, was he?”

His heart was ready to pound out of his chest. 

“You never went as far with any of the others, granted, but we’ve always suspected. The way you look at all the assassins and serial killers you caught, it’s so obviously written out on your face. It all became even more obviously written out when we peeked in your diary.”

The words gutted him. He had nothing left, everything was on display. He wondered if he could die from shame and embarrassment. But he wouldn’t speak, wouldn’t give anything away. Even denying it would get him in trouble because they had proof. They had proof of everything.

“Do you want to say anything?”

He shook his head.

Uriel continued, “You better believe we read every single one of your sick fantasies. Psychopaths, that’s what it takes to get you off, huh? I guess it makes sense why you stopped dating when we hired you. You found your satisfaction on the clock. That’s pretty disgusting if you ask me, and obviously is a conflict of interest for your job.”

He shut his eyes. He never fit in. None of his coworkers ever liked him, and now that they knew the writings on his soul that he tried so hard to hide, they hated him. Maybe they had known the whole time and that’s why he was shunned.

“You and Crowley are a perfect match, really. After all, you had your fair share of stalking.”

He threw his head to the side, trying not to shake his head in denial, because that would break his silence. A thousand defenses burning in his throat. 

Uriel walked to their briefcase at the side of the room, continuing the admonishments all the while, “You’re fucked up, you know that right?” they pulled out a folder, “I gagged when I saw this for the first time. I can’t believe that I used to consider you a friend.”

The evidence of his deeds. Using any resources available to him, whether it was fake accounts on social media or the police records with which he was entrusted, to keep tabs on his ex-boyfriends, out of some kind of insane, masochistic urge. Watching them be happy in ways he would never be. Happy lives without him. It wasn’t wrong, he convinced himself; it was acceptable. But now, the truth burned in the harsh light of day; he was disgusted with himself. He tried not to look at the evidence, but his eyes were drawn to the transcripts, shame pounding at his head. Words began to vomit out of his mouth uncontrollably, “W-why - that’s got nothing to do-” 

“These records are completely relevant. When we got ahold of these, everything started falling into place,” Uriel added, “Unless, of course, there’s another explanation that might not be so obvious? Perhaps you would care to explain?”

He still couldn’t look away from the table.

“Fine, then I guess these records speak for themselves. I noticed combing through the file that all this stopped around the time you started working on Crowley’s case. You had found a new obsession. And you were too caught up in your sick pursuit that you couldn’t see he was using you. He thought of you as an object that he could manipulate.”

_Angel, you’re his angel. He loves you. Don’t let them convince you otherwise._

As if reading his mind, “Did you really think that he loved you, just because he sucked you off every now and then? You don’t know what love is.”

He felt sick to his stomach. Had they seen every time they slept together? Did they really know everything they had done? Any other time, he would have assured himself that it was impossible, but in that moment, he believed it.

Each question and insult bled into the next. Ezra’s mind became blurry as things were shouted at him from every angle. Showing off every evidence of shameful things in his life. Shouting that Anthony had told them things, had said unthinkable things about Ezra. They kept at it until something inside him began to doubt the reality of the past months. They chipped away at him until he was nothing but a sobbing mess. By which point, Michael had returned.

Long gone was his vow of silence, “What do you want from me? Why are you doing this?” He whimpered. 

“The greater good, Ezra.” Michael offered a compassionate voice, a hand in the darkness, “You are still good, I know it. It’s not your fault. Psychopaths are very convincing, we all understand the circumstances. You were having a stressful time.”

“I was,” he keened. 

“You were _so_ stressed. You let your guard down, and he took advantage of your weakness.” 

A shaking sob forced its way out of Ezra. 

“It’s okay, it’s okay. Just tell us how he manipulated you, and we will help you get away from him. You could have your old life back, if you just tell us.” She carefully took up a tissue and wiped away some of the tears streaming down his face. The single act of kindness getting to his head, forcing a few words to his throat, though not the ones she wanted to hear.

“I… I can’t.”

She pulled back to leave the room, face turning cold with menace, “You can’t, or you won’t?” 

“No, please,” But she wouldn’t even look at him, “Please don’t leave-”

He tensed up, getting ready for the barrage of terror to return. 

Instead of Uriel, Sandy appeared at the door. Ezra was relieved until the new interrogator hit the table with a baton, and he knew it would be no break. 

“You’re crying already?” He let out a throaty chuckle, “I’ll give you something to cry over.” 

Ezra had thought he could handle pain. Pain was temporary. He could tune it out, place his mind elsewhere. But the first hit to the gut quickly dissuaded him of that notion. All he could focus on was the hurt thrown at him, not the fact that he couldn’t breathe, not whatever Sandy was blathering about. Not even the heaving noise that he vaguely realised was coming from himself. 

He caught his breath, and his foggy mind managed to clear just enough, “You can’t - this is illegal - Ahh” he was cut off by a paralyzing strike to his back. Lightning bolts of pain. All of his muscles tensing up, screaming at him to run away.

They didn’t want information. They didn’t need information. They just wanted to break him.

As the blows hit, over and over, they dragged each second to a crawl, his mind unable to think of anything except the throbbing pain left in the wake of each strike of the baton. He whimpered, unable to even protect himself in the most basic way, his hands restrained. 

His willpower to resist had been slowly crumbled away, and now, hours into the questioning, there was none left. Anything, he would say anything to end this. 

“H-h-he seduced me!” 

The beating ceased. Ezra sucked in a breath.

“There we go.” He heard behind him. When had Michael come into the room? How long had she been watching?

“Just tell us the truth and this’ll all be over. You’ll get to go home. Don’t you want to go home?”

Ezra nodded quickly.

“You were lonely,”

He was so, so lonely.

“And you saw this young, attractive man giving you attention, and you thought it was real.”

He nodded. He was so stupid to think Anthony could have loved him. What did he even have to offer? He was pathetic, he was stupid, he was fucked up, he was so easily controlled. 

“It was a moment of weakness. You gave into temptation.”

“I did.”

“Tell us what happened.”

His mouth began to run with no brakes, pausing only to listen to their clarifying questions - which he answered thoroughly. Spilling everything. Revealing every second they had spent together.  



	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been nearly a month since I last posted a chapter... sorry about that! I lost all confidence in my writing for a bit and I was having trouble wrapping this story up, so I just had to take a break to work on other things. But, I felt bad leaving this one without an end. Now I've finally come back to this and the story is almost entirely written. The rest should be coming out without too much of a break! Thank you for waiting <3

As he recounted the treatment he received, as far as he remembered, Antonia looked on - the corner of her mouth twitching into a sneer. She had to let go of his hand at some point, otherwise she was sure she would have crushed it. Her nails dug into her own hand instead, though she was in no way aware of the pain. Her stomach churned as Ezra’s descriptions exploded in her imagination.

Ezra only focused on Adam, however. And throughout the entire retelling, Adam’s face never changed.

“I understand all that,” he finally said.

“You’re not scared?” Ezra breathed.

Adam shook his head.

“Then you must not understand. If - no - when you get caught, they will show you no mercy.”

“As long as I’ve done something to change the world, I don’t mind.”

_“I’m going to change the world,”_ Ezra had said to his parents years earlier, in a tone that wasn’t so dissimilar to Adam’s. That stubborn determination that led him through years of studying his passion at university despite his family’s wishes, years of working in a hostile environment to prove his worth, and what gave him the will to leave that very job. In short, everything that led to that very moment.

Adam did have a point, he realised. Earlier in his life, Ezra would always have said that gradual change was best, but, through his job, he caught a glimpse into the corrupt nature of political systems. Gradual change was hopeless in many cases. Everyone seemed to be secretly in it for themselves and their short-term profits. Gabriel, for example, was caught with the bribes in his pocket, and he was killed for it. But Gabriel was one of the least subtle people he knew; how many others had done worse things and got away with it?

And though he was hard to read, Ezra could still glean a genuine love for the Earth and humanity out of Adam’s expressions. He didn’t seem to have any hidden motives, no desire for fame or wealth lying underneath the surface. 

“I realise this is insane, but, I admit, I have never been the most sane,” Ezra began, “I believe you. And you won’t be able to do any of what you plan if you don’t have a way to evade the police. I can certainly help you avoid them as long as possible.”

Adam nodded and pondered for a moment, then held out a hand. They shook on it; Ezra was accepted as part of Them. 

As the pair of ex-assassins walked out of the building, Ezra noticed Antonia was shaking. 

_Those bastards are going to suffer for what they did,_ she thought, _how dare they?_

“Are you alright, dear?” the hand placed on her shoulder startled her. She quickly brushed off the touch.

“I’m fine,” she said through gritted teeth, while her mind ran off in a different direction,_I’m going to fucking kill them._ “You should go meet up with Pepper, Brian, and Wensley at the library. They can fill you in on all the research they’ve done, and you can tell them all the things they’ve got wrong. It’ll be fun.”

“Come with me.” He tried to get her to turn around and face him, but she wouldn’t.

“Sorry, angel, gotta stop by my flat for a bit. I’ll, er, I’ll see you later though.”

***

After the interrogation, a hollowed-out Ezra had been swiftly flown back to London. Without a chance to collect himself, he was brought before his ex-boss. Someone sat him down in front of her desk. He caught sight of a fly buzzing around the back of Frances’ office. Swaying slightly, his gaze followed its random flight pattern. 

What was she saying? He tried to focus, but the buzzing drowned it out completely. It looked like she was saying something important, but then again, she always looked like she was saying something important. Or rather, things became important because she said them. Either way, her face never really changed. 

If there was one thing that Ezra was sure of, it was that he would hate to play poker with her. 

“Ezra?” He jumped at the sound of his name, the fly suddenly quieted down enough for him to hear, “Did you catch any of that?” asked Frances.

“I’m afraid not.” He picked at a spot of dust that clung to his sleeve. 

“It’s alright. All you need to know is things will go back to normal. The details will sort themselves out. And, make sure you get a haircut, you’re looking a little disheveled”

Ezra nodded. He was summarily dismissed back to the blinding fluorescent-lit hallway. Everything was beginning to blur together. Michael almost bumped into him, and spoke softly, “Hello, good to see you’re settling in again.”

He nodded, “Erm, what do you need?”

“Just wanted to check in.” She smiled at him, “We’re about to have a meeting, come join us.”

There was an empty place at the table for him. He settled down in it, or settled as much as he could, and began to flip through the briefing placed in front of him.

“Right, everyone here?” Michael confirmed, “Let’s get on with it.”

He was briefed on the new case: a suspected serial arsonist in Surrey. Not only was it difficult to say out loud, but it was befuddling the investigators. Local police had sent in all the information they had found, but as with most arsonist cases, the evidence of the perpetrator’s presence was burnt away with the building.

Ezra didn’t like arsonists. They were flashy, sure, but, too unpredictable, too destructive; there wasn’t an art to it. Three people had been killed so far by this person, but no evidence of the arsonist’s identity was left behind.

All the women killed in the flames, why were they targeted specifically? Arsonists tended not to go after individuals, but there were many commonalities in all the victims which led that to be a viable hypothesis. Each one a single woman, whose occupation, Ezra noted, had something to do with the supernatural. One was a supposed medium, one a psychic and tarot card reader, and the most recent wrote horoscopes for the local magazine. Maybe someone felt burned when their promises didn’t live up to expectations?

As he settled in for the rest of the week, Uriel informed Ezra that he had been assigned mandatory workplace counseling. Like everyone else, the therapist looked at him with pity, and spoke softly, as if he’d break if he heard anything louder than a whisper.

“How have you been doing, Ezra?”

“Fine.”

“How’s work?”

“I’ve been assigned a new case, a few deaths down in Surrey.”

“How has that been going?”

“Tickety-boo.”

“You seem distracted. How often have you been thinking about Crowley?”

“I haven’t been thinking about him.”

The therapist frowned, “I strongly urge you to be honest with me. How many times has he come up in your thoughts this past week?”

“I don’t think I could answer that.”

“Too many to count?”

Ezra simply shut his eyes.

“It’s okay to admit you still think about it, you don’t have to put on a brave face. Being kidnapped is a very traumatizing event, after all.”

“I told you, I wasn’t kidnapped.”

“The way you describe it, it sounds like you were taken against your will.”

“I never said that-”

“Yes, you did. You were under duress.” 

Ezra rested his head in his hands. 

“I’ll be frank with you, Ezra.”

“Please!”

“You have a degree in psychology; you know as well as I that people are blind to their own biases and rationalizations. You have had to rationalize your experiences into something pleasurable in order to survive.”

“You think I just made up everything that happened?”

“Yes.” The therapist said, “Unconsciously, of course.”

And maybe he had. The past months were seeping away like a dream does after you wake up. It was too much work to keep track of what he remembered happening and what people wanted him to say had happened and what people told him had happened. So, he just let the false memories slip their way in, or - as the therapist put it - he remembered what really happened. It was easier that way.

The therapist continued, “Let’s work on reducing the frequency of thoughts about Crowley, okay?”

***

Antonia’s mind was ablaze as she returned to her flat. She had managed to get away from Ezra before her wrath gave itself away. Her hands curled into tight fists as she tore up the flat. Drawers were yanked from their place, shelves overturned. All the while, she uncovered more of her stashed poisons, guns, knives - tossing them to the center of the room. 

_Those fucking bastards_.

The terror that filled Ezra’s eyes. The way they threw him around. How had she not known? It’s because he was working again, pretty much as soon as they dragged him home. And she’d stupidly thought that they would be more likely to use the carrot than the stick. 

‘Here, Ezra, have your job back. Maybe have some more retirement benefits to boot,’ not ‘We’ll torture you until you clock back in.’ Who the fuck did they think they were?

Now, circling the pile, she considered her options. Her mind was running from one thing to the next, never settling enough to form a plan. From all her memories of Ezra’s coworkers, to quick fantasies of their deaths. From the abuse she had witnessed thrown at Ezra, to the abuse she imagined had happened. And Ezra’s reaction at seeing her again. His insistence that she had said those cruel things when, in fact - fuck, too many thoughts. She was supposed to have gotten over this habit years ago, been trained to have a shred of self-control. She smacked herself on the head, “C’mon, focus. What’s wrong with you?”

She tore a paper out of a notebook and slammed it down on the table. She threw herself onto it, scribbling across the page in marker.

_Toni’s personal hit list:_

As her pen scratched down each name, she made a solemn promise that they were to die by her own hand. They would get no mercy.


	10. Chapter 10

Adam walked into the library study room that the Them had made their research base. Ezra was tediously taking notes, while the rest of them dictated. Antonia wasn’t there.

“Where’s she?” Adam asked.

“She wanted to go back to her flat.” Ezra said distractedly, “Now, Brian, what was that again?”

“I said that we were going to go through the list from the worst contributors to the least bad. We can make the most impact that way, even if things go wrong.”

“Why isn’t she here?” Adam asked.

“I have no clue, after our meeting she seemed a bit…” Ezra turned back to Brian, “That’s not going to work, the investigators will see right through that, then they’ll be able to predict who you’re going after next. You mustn't leave any discernible pattern. Here’s what you do instead-”

“I’ll be back,” Adam left the researchers alone. 

Adam let himself into Antonia’s flat, “Hey, we’re all wondering where you are-” He stopped when he saw Antonia in a panic on the ground of the incredibly messy sitting room. He ran to her side, “You okay?” 

“Fuck, no.” She breathed heavily.

“Hey,” Adam said, his voice grounding Antonia somewhat, “Come on, relax.”

She rubbed her face, “Urgh, how the hell am I supposed to do that?”

“Follow me,” Adam took her hand and helped her to her feet. Then, led her up to the roof of her apartment building. The chill air was rather refreshing, and so was the view of cobblestone streets and medieval rooftops. Antonia took a breath and sat down.

Adam lit a joint and took a deep hit before passing it along to the woman sitting beside him. She thanked him and took it. 

“What were you worrying about?” he asked.

Waving a dismissive hand, she said, “Nothing, nothing.” Then silently watched the lines of smoke dance in the wind.

“Everything’s coming together soon,” Adam said, “You think I’m ready?”

Pausing for a moment, she considered whether she actually wanted to go through with the plan invented by her mind at the height of panic, “Not yet… I think you gotta practice one more thing before you go out and - you know - do it. Start it, I mean.”

“What’s that?” He stared at her curiously.

“We need to get your acting up to snuff,” Antonia said, taking a deep drag of the joint and passing it back.

Adam looked offended for a second, “You don’t think I’m a good actor?”

“You could be better… you just need a little bit of practice.” She pointed a finger in a show of confidence, “Now, here’s what you need to do to prove to me that you’re ready: you will infiltrate MI5’s London office, fill the role of a, uh, a mailroom worker or an intern. You need to be totally unnoticeable, but always watching. Keep track of everything that goes on, and what everyone is doing, because you will be telling me about all of it when you get back.”

“Does Ezra have any advice for me-”

“Ezra doesn’t know about this.”

Adam looked askance, “Oh, I get it.”

“There’s nothing to get. You have to be able to sneak around without attracting attention and-”

“This isn’t about me at all, is it? They’d recognize you if you went to spy on them, that’s why you’re using me.”

“No,” Antonia coughed, “No, this is for your benefit-”

“It’s okay, I get it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about-”

“Toni, I saw the way you looked when Ezra was telling us-”

“Ngk! Shut it.”

“I’ll do it. That’ll be my birthday present for you, okay? Just tell me who you want me to keep tabs on.” Adam smiled, patted her on the back, “Come and help us plan for my first day.”

“Nah, I can’t. Not yet. I’ve gotta let off some steam otherwise… it’s not gonna be pretty.”

Adam stood up and handed the joint to her, “You can have the rest. I’ll tell ‘em you’re busy.”

“Thank you, Adam.” She held out a hand to stop him, “Wait, take this,” She dug the folded list of names out of her pocket to give to him before he left. Normally, she would have ended a day like this by scolding her plants, but at that moment she felt too exhausted. She had to clean up the flat before anyone got back. But, before that, she had to smoke the rest of the joint.

***

Ezra returned to his MI5 office. His job now consisted of nothing but mindlessly combing through records. Just like it had been before he began working on Anthony - Crowley’s case. All the mess was exactly as he had left it before his trip to Rome - no don’t think about that. Erase it. 

A thought was knocking, trying to make its way to the forefront of his consciousness. He tried to ignore it. 

But the thought nagged at him endlessly: the office wasn’t exactly the same. Something was missing. Hadn’t Anthony left something on his desk? Yes, he left his tie there one day when they were prepping for the Rome trip. Taking it off when it got too stuffy. He went home without it. Ezra had run his hands over it, before folding it neatly and leaving it on the corner of the desk, ready to give it back to him. 

The corner of his desk was empty. Maybe the tie had never been there. It never existed. According to any records he could find, Anthony had never been on MI5’s payroll. He knew it was a secretive operation, but there should have been a record _somewhere_.

Maybe it was just one of his sick fantasies, and it had become real in his mind. 

He set to work redoing all his filing. He didn’t think anymore. Thinking had only caused him trouble. He had to keep his head low, not rock the boat. 

All his attention focused on the case. 

He examined the report. Fires were no doubt intentional, likely all done by the same person. There were traces of the same type of kerosene left behind in each building. 

Going with his hunch, Ezra was calling around to other psychics, palm readers, and crystal sellers around Surrey. He was asking them about their regular customers, if there was anyone who they were worried about. Anyone who seemed like they could turn to violence if perhaps a cold reading didn’t go their way.

He got a list of names, cross-referenced with the national criminal database, and passed them off to the others. Yes, this was what he was good at. 

But why did he feel so empty?

The days bled on. Another call from Surrey police. Another confirmation that his list of people were all totally unrelated to the arsonist. Ezra was getting frustrated by this point, and he left the building in a huff, pausing by the vending machines in the courtyard.

He fumbled around his pockets, an unlit cigarette held firmly between his teeth. He was still getting used to being a smoker again, left his blasted lighter at home. He hit his head against the side of the building.

“Here,” Newt said, holding out a match.

“Oh,” Ezra took it and lit his cigarette, “Thank you.”

“Bad day?”

He nodded, “All of my leads were dead ends. If I don’t come up with something soon, another woman will be killed.”

“This is to do with the fires?”

“Yes, since all the victims were involved in some sort of psychic business. You know, tarot cards, palm reading, horoscopes and all that, I figured our arsonist had an obsession. I’ve searched through Surrey area records for people with any criminal record or mental instability, who seemed to show interest in the supernatural. But, all their alibis checked out, or they didn’t fit the profile, or…”

“What about someone who hated those things?”

“I assumed given the connection, the perpetrator had some sort of familiarity. But perhaps…there could be something to that. Hard to find a list of people who _don’t_ participate in these activities, though. Should I just rule out 90% of Surrey residents one-by-one?”

Newt paused for a long while before posing a peculiar question, “How… how much do you know about modern witch hunters?”

Ezra was taken aback, “Excuse me, what?”

“You know what? Forget I said anything.”

***

As far as Ezra knew, Adam was going to a special lecture in London for one of his classes. Antonia gave him a long hug before he went.

“As soon as I turn up, he’s gone.” Ezra complained, watching his motorcycle leave, “He’s very peculiar.”

“You got that right. He’s an oddball, that one.” Antonia responded. 

“I have a few questions I was hoping on asking him about his list-”

She threw an arm around his shoulders, “He’ll be back by tomorrow night. You don’t want him to give up on school, do you?”

“Of course not,”

“Come here,” she gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. And another. Then, feeling drawn in she leaned closer. She wrapped her arms around him tight. She could have been doing this for years if it hadn’t been for-

“My dear?” He patted her on the back.

“I’m so sorry, angel.”

“Whatever for?”

“I’m just so, so sorry.”

“You’ve nothing to apologize for.” 

She tensed up, and Ezra felt it. 

“Everything is alright,” Ezra assured her.

“No it’s not,” she said in a barely audible whisper, “But it will be.”

*

Adam made polite chit-chat with his temporary coworkers. He made himself familiar with the layout of the building, the placement of each person’s office. Mentally mapping it out. Taking special notice of when the names from the list appeared on office doors. 

Sneaking around the back offices gave him access to employee files, where he memorized each address connected to each name. 

Then, successful, he continued with the rest of the workday, focusing on repeating the information over and over in his head. He carefully chiseled it into the recesses of his mind until he knew he could repeat it on command. 

“Hello,” Someone greeted him, “I don’t think I’ve met you before.”

Adam turned around and saw a friendly face behind glasses. Arms full of papers. He shifted them over to one arm before offering to shake Adam’s hand.

“Are you new?”

Adam nodded.

“I’m Pulsifer, Newt Pulsifer. I try and meet everyone who works here. I admit, it’s not the friendliest of workplaces, but I do what I can to brighten it up.” He noticed Adam was holding still, “I was in your shoes once, so I get it. What’s your name?”

“Adam.” He said.

“Well, Adam, you can always come to me if anyone gives you any trouble. I’ll make sure the right people hear about it.”

Little did Adam know, Newt wasn’t the only person who took notice of him.

One woman spotted him in the hallway but didn’t make her recognition known. She wouldn’t have noticed him had he not absentmindedly blurted out his name. But, as he did, she realised who he was. When she returned to her own office, she dialed a number on her phone.

“Hello… Yes, it’s me… Can you explain to me what your son is doing in my office building?”


	11. Chapter 11

Anthony leaned against Lucy the whole drive away from Ezra, away from his freedom, then the car stopped outside an apartment building. “This is my new flat?” Anthony asked as Lucy unlocked the door.

“No, this is _my_ flat.”

“Nah, I’ve been to your flat, remember?”

She gave him a withering stare, “When you kidnapped my son? Yes, I remember.”

“You moved houses, then?” He intoned.

They walked up to her home, and she let him through the front door, “You’ll be staying on the couch. This is a temporary situation, just until I can arrange a proper place for you.”

Anthony dug his hands in his pockets and stepped around the unfamiliar flat carefully. 

“Oh,” He jumped when a kid walked into the living room, “Hey Adam.”

“I’ve got to pop out for a bit. Keep an eye on him, will you?” Lucy said.

Anthony nodded, “Uh, sure.”

“I was talking to Adam.” 

She wasn’t popping to the shops, Anthony decided, because she was gone from the house for several hours. The whole time, Adam sat on the couch watching some cartoons, and Anthony sat right next to him, paying much more attention to the bottle he had found than whatever was on the telly. He was quite drunk by that point and had no inhibitions to stop himself from blathering, “You know how you said - you said that I was good because I’m sad. You said that right?”

“Yeah?” Adam mumbled.

“You said that, and it’s not fucking true.”

Adam shrugged.

Anthony mimicked him, and shrugged harshly “That’s all you have to say, just - that? Do you know what I am? I mean do you _know_ what I am? Do you know exactly what I am?”

“You’re Anthony.”

“I’m pure evil, that’s exactly what I am. _And,_ I’m sad at the same time. So, you’re wrong.”

Adam rolled his eyes and took out his phone.

“No nononono, listen here kid. I kill people. For money. And art. And because it’s _fun_. Does that sound like a good person to you?”

“You didn’t kill me, and you had lots of chances to.”

“I held you at _fucking gunpoint,_”

Adam sighed, “You might have thought you could shoot that gun, but you really, really couldn’t. You said it yourself, you don’t kill kids.”

“Shut up.” He crossed his arms, “Fuck you.” 

“You should lay off the alcohol while you’re staying with us. I don’t think my mum will like it.”

“Yeah, well, fuck her too.” He took another drink, “Has she always been this much of a prick, or have I only just started to notice it?”

“Pretty much”

“She’s not - not horrible to you though. She loves you sooo much it makes me sick.”

Adam snapped his head up, “Don’t even joke about that.”

“I’m not, I’m seriously about to go blahhh all over the coffee table. Though granted, maybe that’s the vodka and not the-”

“Don’t joke about my mum.”

“Oh, believe me, I’m serious about that too. I suppose it’s not your fault. Just biology, innit? Mums gotta love their kids or else… or else-”

“She always loved you more than me.”

“Pfft. Don’t be ridiculous Adam.”

“I’m dead serious.”

“She left me in prison. She left me for dead in Rome. She hit me in the face with a goddamn cricket bat!” 

Adam looked at him, hurt creeping across his features, “Do you know where she was for my past three birthdays? She was working with you.”

His alcohol-addled brain stopped for a moment, then kickstarted a few memories. In all the time that he spent working for her, Lucy had never missed any of his birthdays.

_“Happy birthday, Anthony.” She smiled at him and held out a neatly wrapped box. He tore it open and found a gorgeous pair of heels._

_“Holy shit, these are amazing.”_

_“I noticed you admiring mine. Go ahead, walk around in them a little,”_

_The newly-18-year-old Anthony slipped in them, and felt like a newborn giraffe with how wobbly his legs got, “Er, how do you…?”_

_“Shoulders back, keep your posture.” She adjusted the way he stood, “Don’t stomp around like that, just go from heel-to-toe… There we go, you’re a natural.” _

“Shit.” Anthony turned to Adam, “What if she doesn’t like either of us. She’s the closest thing I’ve ever had to a mum.” 

_ _ _ _“I’ve got it worse, she actually is my mum.”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“Shit, you’re right,” he offered the bottle to Adam._ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“I’m twelve.”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“You deserve a drink, for putting up with her for twelve bloody years. I only met her… four years ago I think.”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“I’m good, thanks.”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“Eh, suit yourself.” He swung his head back to take another drink._ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“Are you going to be an assassin again?”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“Suppose. I can’t do much else, can I?”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _Adam shrugged. _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“You still have potential. Don’t let her use it all up. What do you wanna do with your life?”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“I dunno yet.”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“C’mon, you must have some idea,” Anthony squinted at him, “No? Well, here’s my advice: find what you want and just do it. Don’t let anyone stop you.”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“But how do I find what I want?” Adam asked._ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“You’ll know it when you see it. And whatever it is, I know it’s gonna be great.”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _***_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _Antonia worried about Adam. He hadn’t sent her any texts since he arrived in London. And now, pacing around her flat, she couldn’t stop imagining all the terrible things that could have befallen him. All that would be her fault for sending him off to London. _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“You are a selfish little bastard, aren’t you,” She scolded an orchid, and placed an ice cube in its pot, “I fucking saved your arse. Flower shop was about to throw you right out. No one else would have watered you so religiously, got you the perfect soil, exactly the right amount of light.”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _She picked up the pot to make sure it heard her, “All I ask is that you bloom again. Is that too much to ask for?”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _She slammed it back down on the table next to her weapons. She picked up a knife and stared at her reflection in the blade._ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“C’mon, be cool.” She tried to collect herself, running her hands through her hair, “What did Lucy teach you?”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _From behind her, someone said, “Speak of the Devil, and she shall appear.” She twisted the knife in her hand, and saw the face of Lucy reflected in it._ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“Oh, give me a fucking break.” _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _When facing her ex-protege for the first time in years, Lucy had the audacity to crack a smile, “What are you planning?” _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“I could ask the same of you.”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“_I’m_ not the one standing next to a pile of deadly weapons, darling.”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“Look, I’m in no mood to-”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“You’re looking good, for being dead.”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“Surprise?”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _Antonia’s stomach dropped right through the floor when Lucy stepped close. She trapped her in her arms, and hugged until Antonia could barely breathe. _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“Get away from me,” Antonia said, squirming to escape. She held on tight, until Antonia twisted her head and bit down on her captor’s arm. _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“Ow!” She yanked her arms away, “Why’d you do that?”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“That’s what you get. You can’t just touch people without asking.”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“Don’t be like that,” Lucy rolled her eyes._ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“Why are you here?”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“I wanted to find out what my son was doing in London instead of at school. And then, I find you: alive and free.”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“I don’t want to see you-”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“My darling, I can’t tell you how pleased I am that you’re-”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“Don’t even start with that!”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _She looked down, “Fine then, if you insist. Let’s skip the pleasantries. What exactly is Adam up to?”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“That’s none of your business.”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“He’s my son. If he’s risking his life, that is exactly my business. Why are you making him sneak around MI5?”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“I’m not making him do anything, Lucy.”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“Just like I didn’t make you do anything?”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _She stomped over to the tall woman, pointing at her harshly, “I am nothing like you.”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“I think you’ve learned a lot from my time as your handler. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, as they say.”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“Hey, fuck you!” _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _She tutted at him, “I hold no resentment towards you for everything that happened between us.”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“You expect me to feel the same way? After you completely fucked me over?”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“I did what I needed to do. And I did it for your sake, darling.”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“I’ll have you know, I would _never_ do what you did to me. I’ll be better family to Adam than you ever were.”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _She wrinkled her nose, and took a breath, “Why are you having him go after MI5 agents?”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“It’s not like that-” The door began to unlock, Antonia looked desperately at Lucy, “Please-”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“Oh, I’m not going anywhere until you tell me,” she said. _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _The door opened and Ezra wandered inside carrying grocery bags. “I couldn’t find the exact wine that you asked for, but I’m sure- Oh good Lord.”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _***_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _Anthony, who was supposed to be preparing for his job now that he had his own place, was instead focused on Ezra’s wellbeing. He had been keeping an eye on him the whole week, and had seen him already talking about working on an arsonist case for God’s sake. _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _Why hadn’t he tried to come find him yet? If he was fine and unharmed, then why would he stay silent? How dare he- No, Anthony stopped himself from feeling angry. Put that off until he got to speak to him. There had to be a reasonable explanation._ _ _ _

_ _ _ _He headed home, planning the next rendezvous in his head. When he was in the middle of this planning, Lucy burst through the door unexpectedly, and he scrambled to lean over the paper on his table. _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“What’s that, darling?” She asked._ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“Nothing, nothing.” Anthony shook his head, “Boring.”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“Alright then,” She began to reach into her purse, “Now, I’ve arranged this job for you, should be an easy one, just to get you back in the swing of things-”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“Ezra’s not in jail, did you know that?” Anthony tapped on the table nervously._ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“He isn’t?” Lucy said benignly._ _ _ _

_ _ _ _He frowned, “You don’t care about him.”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“I don’t. You shouldn’t either.”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“He was carried away in cuffs, I just had to check in on him.”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _Lucy cupped his cheek, “He’s long forgotten about you. MI5 offered him his job back, and he took it.”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“If I could just _see_ him-”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“No,” she said sternly, gripping onto his face._ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“He could join us-”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _She moved a finger over to his lips, “It’s not meant to be, darling.” Her eyes drifted over to the table where a postcard of the statue of David rested. Anthony saw where she was looking and tensed up._ _ _ _

_ _ _ _Her delicate hands fluttered over to the card, and she feigned innocent curiosity, “May I look at this now?”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _She took it without bothering to wait for a response._ _ _ _

__ __ __ __ _Angel,_  
_Meet me in St James Park, tomorrow afternoon. By the duck pond._  
_I miss you!_  
_XOXO_

_ _ _ _Methodically, she tore it apart, watching Anthony squirm under the sound. Finally, she dropped the pieces to the floor. _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“You won’t see him again. You won’t try to make contact. If not for your sake, then for his.” She slapped down the envelope containing his next hit, “Get back to work.”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _***_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“What is she doing here?” Ezra asked._ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“I’m inquiring after the well-being of my disobedient son. And I was right to worry, considering he’s been in the company of you two.”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“He’s doing just fine,” Ezra spoke as politely as he could manage, “Thank you. Now if you would be so kind as to-”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“I suppose you approve of what he’s doing?” she gave him a disdainful look._ _ _ _

_ _ _ _Ezra rolled his eyes, “Does the whole bloody world know? First I have to deal with all his friends, and now her?”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“Lucy was just leaving-” Antonia said._ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“Not yet. I want to find out what my son is doing in London.”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _Ezra said, “He’s only at a lecture by the Society of Oceanic something-or-other. That should be the least of your concerns.” _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _Lucy took a moment to calculate her next move, “Oh, this is very interesting,” she smiled at Antonia like a spider that had just trapped a fly, “That’s all I came here for. I don’t know why you didn’t say that sooner, darling. I’ll keep in contact.”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _She sauntered out of the flat, and Antonia sighed in relief. _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _Ezra, on the other hand, was feeling rather unsettled. He demanded, “What on Earth is going on?”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _Antonia began to put the groceries away while she spoke, “She spotted Adam in London and came to interrogate me about it. Adam and her haven’t been on speaking terms. Thanks for giving it away, I was trying to maintain his privacy - as much as I can at least.”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“She could have called if that’s all she wanted to know.”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _“What can I say? She likes a dramatic entrance.”_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _Her phone buzzed, she peeked at it and saw a text from an unknown number:_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _I’ll keep your secret if you tell me what Adam is planning._ _ _ _ _


	12. Chapter 12

The wind whipped at Antonia as she waited for Adam’s return. She was so pleased to see him step off his motorbike, though she was feeling a touch guilty at having sent him off in the first place. Adam didn’t seem to notice, though, as he handed her paper back to her with his added notes. 

“All the people on your list, they still work there.”

“Good, good.”

“I got you their addresses.”

Antonia shook as she accepted the paper. Four names and addresses. An office layout was drawn on page with labels. 

“This is perfect,” she said, ruffling her hand through his hair, “They’re all going to get what’s coming to them.”

“Just like the people on my list.”

“Yes, Adam, just like them.” She looped her arm around his, “C’mon, Ezra’s got some advice for you.”

“I told you no one would notice me.”

She could lie, she was good at lying. But, lying to so many people at once - that was starting to get under her skin. Still, it was necessary.

“Yeah, you did. Well done.” She said so sweetly, she almost believed herself that nothing had gone wrong and that she hadn’t been blackmailed into giving away details of both of their plans. Lucy had promised not to interfere, though who knew what she would do when the time came around.

***

Lucy had told Anthony to get to work, and so he got to work, chasing after the hit he had been assigned. He did everything the same as he normally did. Same as any other job. Any other time. 

He did some research, discovered the disguise that would get him a private meeting. Then, on the day, everything went according to plan.

He found the mark, got alone with him, killed him, and… nothing. 

As he looked over the corpse before him, he felt totally empty. What was going on with him? Maybe he needed something stronger to make himself feel again.

*

“Mr. Fell!” Newt called out in the bright hallway, “I have something to show you,” he pressed a few buttons on the keypad of his old phone, then held it out. The screen showed a picture of jugs and jugs of kerosene stashed in a disordered closet. 

“Newt… what is this?”

“Is this what the arsonist used?”

He looked closely at the pixelated image, but recognized the branding, “It’s exactly the right kind of accelerant.” Ezra mumbled, “What’s going on?”

“I’ve never told anyone this, but I had an unusual childhood.” He stared at his feet, “When you spoke to me about the identities of the poor women, I was reminded of someone I used to know.”

“Who?”

“My uncle.” Newt forced himself to make eye contact, “He’s the self-appointed vicar of a sort of… cult. I stopped by Dorking - my hometown - and paid him a visit. As I suspected, he was just as obsessed with cleansing the world of witches as he always was. And when he stepped out of the room, I managed to snoop around a bit and snapped this photo.”

“Oh, Newt, you’re brilliant!” Ezra beamed, “You should be really proud of yourself, you just might have solved this case.”

Newt looked quite chuffed, “I’ll send you his address.”

“What’s his name?” Ezra asked, and a sheepish look immediately cast itself over Newt’s face again.

“You’re never going to believe me.”

Within the hour, Thou-shalt-not-commit-adultery Pulsifer was picked up for questioning.

***

When Antonia brought Adam to the library study room, Ezra had been fussing over his loopy handwriting for hours, making sure he wasn’t missing anything. He hardly looked up when Adam greeted him. 

“Adam,” Ezra said, “I’ve made some changes to your plans in order to maximise your safety. You must go about this cautiously.”

“What changes have you made?”

“I’ve rearranged the order to be entirely random, and then arranged by location to make things easier, money-wise, with all the traveling that you’ll be doing. I know you said I shouldn’t worry about funds, but I went ahead and did anyway. So the first one on your list is a businessman, in London. Now, he should be a good start to this whole scheme, but-”

Ezra took off his glasses, “But - I want you to know that you can still back out, at any point. There’s no shame in it.”

“Remind me what this guy’s done.” Adam said.

“He - erm” Ezra shuffled through a few papers, “He controls a company that deals in… palm oil.” 

Adam’s face turned deadly serious, “Palm oil is responsible for the destruction of the world’s rainforests and the extinction of thousands of species. It’s absolutely senseless and despicable. So, no, I am not backing out.”

“Okay,” Ezra said, “He should be easy enough to isolate-”

Antonia felt the list burning in her pocket. As Ezra went over his detailed plans, Antonia was creating her own plan. 

***

_No contacting Ezra, okay, I can do that. There’s plenty of men out there, plenty of men in this very building._ He made eyes with a man across the nightclub. Wiggled a finger to welcome him over. 

“Can I buy you a drink?” He offered.

“Of course,” Anthony replied.

“My name is-”

Anthony pressed a finger to his lips, and shushed him, “No need for that, angel.”

Yes, he would do nicely. 

Anthony closed his eyes and imagined he was kissing someone else. Yes, this could work, it sort of felt the same. He went back to the man’s flat and kissed him some more.

He set forth at his usual breakneck speed, tearing off his clothes and throwing himself on top of the man. Loud, sharp moans filled the whole flat. He went fast, fast, faster… 

“Urgh,” Anthony gave up with a groan of frustration and removed himself from the bed. The man whimpered at the sudden stop.

“What?” He asked, dazed.

Anthony stomped around the room collecting all his stuff, “Why didn’t you slow me down?”

“Did- did you want me to?”

“Yes! You bloody idiot!”

“O-oh, I could if you wanted- Don’t leave-”

“This just isn’t doing anything for me.” He walked through the front door, shirt still unbuttoned. 

*

“You say that you were at your church at the time the fire started?” Ezra questioned.

He rambled about his alibi, and only half of Ezra’s brain paid attention. The other half was looking over the arsonist. _He was hardly tall, dark, and handsome. Well, hardly the last one. He supposed that two out of three wasn’t bad. Not everyone was gonna be as perfect as-_

“Thing is, Mr. Pulsifer, we checked with your fellow churchgoers, and they don’t remember seeing you.”

_Maybe he was not conventionally attractive, but there was a certain something to him. A sort of indescribable, compelling-_

Ezra tugged at his collar, to try and release some of the hot shame that had collected there, “C-can you explain why we found kerosene in your house, the same accelerant discovered to be the cause of the string of fires?”

_Stop it_, Ezra scolded himself, _thoughts like that are going to get you in trouble again._

***

Mr. Harmony settled down in a nice audiobook and rested his feet up on his desk. He deserved this break after having brokered a several million-dollar contract. Pressing a button on his desk’s phone, he reminded his secretary that no one was to interrupt him for the next few hours and to take messages for him, please and thank you. 

His eyes fell closed and the narrator led him through the story. Totally relaxed, ready to do nothing for the rest of the day.

Behind him, a window slid open. Someone crept in, though his soft steps went unheard over the voice in his headphones. A wire suddenly clung itself to his neck, choking him silently. 

He thrashed his hands back to try and stop the attack but failed to make any difference. 

The garroter leaned in to say a final statement before his victim fell unconscious, “You don’t care about breathing, considering you are contributing to massive deforestation. If you aren’t stopped, this is what will happen to all of us.”

He left the office discreetly after the deed was done, and returned as quickly as he could to his dorm. As he softly closed the door behind him, he spotted Antonia watching something on her phone, waiting for him. 

Upon seeing her sat in his dorm, he choked out, “I did it.”

“How do you feel?” she asked, putting her phone away.

“I feel… fine.”

She stood from where she was sitting and walked over to him, concern spreading over her features, “You’re shaking.”

“No - I’m fine.”

“Remember what this guy did, okay? He deserved everything-”

“He deserved everything he got, I know that. But - I mean - it was…” 

“Look, Adam. You said you could do this, but I’m not sure if-”

“I said, _I am fine!_” Adam snapped. Antonia flinched.

“Alright, alright-”

“If you’re just going to be like that, then leave.” He pointed to the door with a quivering hand. 

“Adam,” She reached out to him, “You just killed your first person. I don’t think you should be alone right now-”

“You’ve been talking to Ezra too much.”

“That’s the whole point of him being here, innit? He’s the angel on your shoulder-”

“You were the one who wanted him here. I don’t think it was for me, I think it was because you wanted to date him again. You used me as an excuse - to get your foot in the door.”

“That’s not true! He’s been helping, hasn’t he? He’s come up with lots of good ideas-”

“Get out of here!” Adam pushed her.

“Okay,” she took a calming breath, “Promise me you’ll call one of your friends and I’ll leave.”

He took ahold of her arm and began to lead her towards the door. She planted her heels in the ground and firmly held back, “Promise me that!”

“Just leave already!” He tugged at her arm.

“No!”

“I want to be alone!”

“That’s not what you need right now!”

Just as it was occurring to Antonia that this was a very Lucy-like move that she was pulling, Adam seemed to have the same realisation.

“You think I’m incapable of seeing through your lies. You’re just like my mum.”

“Hey, hey, hey!” Antonia shouted, “Fuck you, I’m nothing like her.” She wrenched her arm from him, “Fine, I’ll leave, okay? You shouldn’t push me like that. That was very rude.”

“You shouldn’t ignore what I said. _That_ was very rude.”

“I’m… sorry,” And she stormed out the door, despite everything in her saying that it was a bad idea to leave him alone. She promptly left the city to go take out her anger on some people who certainly deserved it.

*

Michael was having a peaceful evening in her home. As she pet her cat, she didn’t seem to have a single regret bothering her. That was all about to change as Antonia slipped in through an open window.

She spent some time observing her, following her path silently as she wandered around the house. It was time.

“Hey Michael,” Antonia said behind her.

She froze in her tracks, and slowly turned around, to find herself face-to-face with someone that she thought was long dead. She was backed into a corner.

“Holy shit-”

“Shut up.” Antonia said.

She took a few panicked breaths, “W-what do you want?”

Antonia leaned in close, relishing in the way Michael flinched back, “Hey that’s a nice perfume you have on. Is it l’eau de fucking-bitch?”

“Excuse me?” 

“Is that what you were wearing when you watched Ezra get tortured?”

Her eyes widened ever so slightly, “That’s what this is about…” She nodded, “Allow me to elucidate the situation we were put in-”

“Now, now. You can’t talk your way out of this one.”

She held out her hands to caution her, “I understand you might feel-”

A familiar click of a loaded gun interrupted her. Cold metal pressed against her temple. Antonia smiled, “That shut you right up, didn’t it?”

She stared at him, trying and failing to stop herself from rambling, “Listen, I - I didn’t do anything to him. It’s not me you should be after - it’s -”

“Oh, believe me,” she got close enough to where Michael could see how serious she was, “Whoever you’re about to name, they’re next on my list. But you were complicit, don’t try to deny it.”

“Wait!” she shouted, “I can help you get your revenge on the real monsters if you give me the chance. I’ve got all the intel you need to make your job really easy, just - just trust me.” 

Antonia pulled the gun back, replaced it in its holster. Relief washed over Michael like a drowning victim that finally managed to get that gasp of air. 

“Do you know what my plan is?” Antonia asked, to which Michael shook her head, “I’m going to find Uriel, cut them open, and see if they have a heart in that chest. I’m betting that I’ll just find an empty space there. Then, I’ll find Sandy. I’m going to tie him down and see if he can take the pain he so likes to deliver unto others. I expect he’ll break down before I’m even halfway done with him. And finally, I’ll head up to your boss’s office and… well, I haven’t decided what she deserves yet.”

“Very reasonable reaction- very very reasonable-”

“But before I do all that, I was planning to slice you open like a fish.” She reached in her pocket and pulled out a knife, pressing it slowly against her soft stomach, giggling at the soft whimpers it caused, “You know, to see if you had any guts in you. But with how quickly you were willing to give up all your friends, I think my question has been answered.”

She made a move to put the knife away, but paused, “You know what? Why don’t we check anyway.”

She returned to Ezra that night, frantically crossing a name off her list before she pounced on him in bed, attacking him with a flurry of kisses. 

“Where’ve you been all day?” Ezra mumbled.

“Oh God, I love you so much,” She whispered between heavy breaths in his ear, “Take me, angel.”


	13. Chapter 13

Ezra was wrapping up all the paperwork of the arsonist case when Uriel walked into his office and gave a soft knock to the doorframe to alert him of their presence, “So, it looks like our religious friend pled guilty. Well done. I know it’s annoying being stuck behind a desk all day, but keep up the good work and you might be going out on assignments again.”

“Thank you,” Ezra said quietly, nodding his head.

“The next time we have a big assassin case, you’ll be on the front lines.”

“Erm… really?” 

“Of course, Ezra.” They smiled, “You’re one of our best investigators. It’d be a shame to leave you cooped up in here.”

“Are you sure that’s wise?”

“You mustn’t question orders from the top.” They responded.

He gave a hollow smile, “Of course. Just give me a call when the next murdering bastard goes on a rampage, I suppose.”

“I certainly will.”

They turned to leave, but Ezra cleared his throat, “Excuse me. What if I would prefer to stay… cooped up? Less danger for one thing.”

They regarded him with a raised eyebrow, “I thought you weren’t one to be wary of danger?”

“It’s normal though - to - to be wary of danger.”

“Sure. I’ll give you a call soon as.” 

“I’m not sure if I’m ready-”

They left without further ado.

It took him years to build up a reputation, and after betraying the trust of his workplace, going mad for a few months, and violating dozens of ethical and workplace codes, they were rather keen on having him back. Some part of Ezra was unsettled at that, but he tried to assure himself that it was better to be back to normalcy. 

***

Still angry at Antonia, Adam sought out his other mentor. He called his mobile and said curtly, “Ezra? Adam. Where are you? Is she there too? Good.” Before hanging up. 

He pounded on the door to Antonia’s flat, then unlocked the door himself. 

Ezra was pacing around, unsettled after the phone call. Slightly scared when he saw the look on Adam’s face.

Adam threw down a newspaper. The headline spelled out the basic facts about his assassination of the first on Adam’s list.

“What’s this-?”

“Nothing changed!” Adam cried out, “I got rid of him, and his company just went off to his kid. Business as usual!”

“Adam, take a breath.”

“Everything I did was for nothing.”

“It’s okay. These things happen.” Ezra looked at him with a sympathetic gaze, “Now, let’s work through this.”

Ezra picked up the newspaper and perused through the details, “Wait a second, you garroted him? I thought we agreed on something more discreet.”

“Yeah…Toni said this would be better for the message-”

“Oh, that bloody snake.” Ezra pinched the bridge of his nose, “Don’t listen to her, listen to me.” 

“I will, from now on.” Adam crossed his arms, “So, what d’you got for me.”

“Well, as to the business of impact, I think we can find a solution. The reason why the three billionaires Anthony killed affected the world so was because of their wills. They ordered that each of their companies be shut down in the event of their deaths, I presume in some misguided belief that ‘either we have all the wealth, or no one does.’”

“Or maybe to stop the siblings from backstabbing each other,” Adam suggested.

“That certainly sounds plausible.”

“So what you’re saying is that we need to make sure their companies get shut down.”

Ezra nodded, “Exactly, my dear boy.”

“How am I meant to do that?”

“We could - theoretically I mean - falsify a will before you go through with the… the job.”

Adam paused to think, “Wensley would be able to get into their computer systems. To change it. Pepper’d be able to get the physical copies. And Brian - well he could be in charge of writing the fake stuff. He’s on his way to a law degree after all.”

“Oh dear Lord,” Ezra ran a hand through his hair, “This is so much to keep track of.”

“We have to do it.”

***

No contacting Ezra, sure. He could do that. He _was_ doing that. It wasn’t contacting if he just kept an eye on him. 

Anthony was watching him at that moment, from a distance, peering out from under a hat. Ezra was eating breakfast at a cafe, nose in a case file. Intensely focused. 

That wasn’t breaking the rules, not technically. And, if it seemed like he was in danger at any point, then Anthony would have a moral duty to step in, right? He saw Ezra tipping his head farther and farther back as he drank more of his drink. 

There. He was in danger of running out of cocoa. Moral duty to step in. Anthony walked up to the counter of Ezra’s cafe, making sure to hide his face from where he was sat. 

“Heya. Uhh… one medium-sized hot cocoa please.”

“Of course. Whipped cream?”

“Nah. How much do I owe ya?”

“Two pound fifty.” The cashier pulled out a paper cup, “What name should I put it under?”

“Ezra Fell. E-z-r-a F-e-l-l. Make sure you call it out real loud, I’m deaf in one ear.” He handed over a five pound note and told him to keep the change before promptly walking out of the cafe back to his perch across the street. After a minute or two, he saw Ezra jump at the calling of his name. He cautiously approached the counter and began to speak to the barista. Quickly, he gathered up his things and left without even taking his drink.

Huh. 

Anthony sipped his own coffee. Next time he’d have to take a more direct approach.

Feeling unsettled after the cocoa incident, Ezra decided to continue his work from the safety of his office. He jumped when someone poked their head in his office and said, “Hello Mr. Fell.”

“Newton.” Ezra nodded perfunctorily.

“I brought you some tea,”

“You don’t need to do that anymore, now that you’ve been promoted.”

“Oh it’s no trouble,” Newt said, “I need a break from all the secret operations and that.”

The teacup was overfilled so that the motion of setting it down made just a touch of the drink go over the side, “Oh no, I’m so sorry about that Mr. Fell.” He pulled a napkin out of his pocket and began to pat down the spilled liquid.

Ezra rubbed his face, he didn’t want to deal with this.

Then, Newt added in a knowing manner, “You better check to see if all your papers are alright.” He stared at Ezra for a moment, before saying goodbye, “Er… have a good day.”

Newt was acting odd. Although he was always a bit clumsy, this seemed far more extreme than usual. And he left the napkin soaking in the little puddle of tea. Ezra picked it up, and noticed something was scrawled on it, slightly smudged. 

_The room is bugged. You’re in danger._

Ezra’s stomach dropped. He stared at the note for a long time, trying to convince himself it was real and not a hallucination. Everything began to blur together.

Someone else knocked on his door. He quickly crumpled up the napkin and put it in his pocket. He couldn’t risk leaving it in the trash. 

He was quickly running out of places where he felt safe. After his workday ended, he went to visit one of the last ones - his sister’s house. Eve handed him a cup of tea, “I’m so glad you decided to come back.”

“Yes.” 

“Sarah has something for you.”

“Does she?” He looked down and saw his niece hiding shyly behind Eve’s legs. His face twitched into something approximating a smile. 

“Go on,” Eve encouraged her. She turned red as she approached Ezra and held out a piece of paper. 

“What’s this?” Ezra asked, accepting the crayon drawing.

“It’s you, me, and Mummy.”

“Right. Lovely drawing… What are these?” He pointed to the strange shapes at each figure’s sides. 

“They’re wings.” She said sheepishly.

“Wings, huh?”

“She draws that on everyone nowadays.” Eve supplied.

He finally felt a little happy, “I think that’s wonderful. I would love to be able to fly away, wouldn’t you?”

Sarah nodded furiously.

“Run along now, and play with your toys. Uncle Ezra and I need to have a talk about some boring stuff.”

Ezra was sad to see her go. She didn’t ask him any difficult questions. He didn’t have to guess at her real motives like he did with everyone else in his life. 

Eve whispered harshly, “I found this in your coat. What the hell does it mean?” She held out the crumpled note.

“Oh.” Ezra said distantly, “You can see that too.”

“You’re in danger?”

“I suppose I am.”

“You suppose…?”

He looked up at her, “Do you care?”

“What?” She breathed, “Of course I care. Of course I do. If you need any help, I’m here for you.”

“There’s nothing that can be done. When my bosses decide I’m not useful for them any longer, I’ll meet with an accident.”

“Good Lord, it’s like you work for the mafia.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Look, Ezra. There’s been something I’ve been meaning to tell you.” She looked to be on the verge of tears, “Our parents didn’t leave you anything, but in my opinion, half of that money is rightfully yours. You can have it. Use it if you ever need to run away.”

“I…Erm…” he blinked a few times, “Really?”

“Of course really. You’re family.”

He had a family--for the first time in years, he had a family, “Thank you. Thank you so much.” And at the return of the warm familial love, he desperately wanted to grab ahold of it and keep it.

But now he was in danger. How would he go? They didn’t want blood on their hands, they never did. He’d be sent on a suicide mission, facing someone dangerous with insufficient protections. That’s just what happens to MI5 agents who were a little too stubborn: they ended up on the wrong end of a sniper rifle.

His coworkers didn’t have to hire a hit, they just had to put him in the wrong place at the wrong time. They didn’t even need to admit to themselves that they were doing that. 

It was only a matter of time.

He walked out of MI5 during his lunch break, and he never came back.

***

Antonia let her knife clatter to the ground, watching the pool of blood around her slowly grow. Her gaze slowly rolled over to the person’s gaping chest.

“Oh look, you do have a heart,” she spoke madly to the dead body, “Then why weren’t you fucking using it?”

“Woulda saved me the trouble,” she stood and grimaced at the red speckled sleeve she wore, “And would have saved this outfit.”

Ultimately she shrugged, “It was worth it though. All those insults you shouted at me just confirmed that you deserved this. S’your own fault really.”

Getting revenge was so nice; no pesky moral compass tingling in the back of her mind. The screams and struggles of her victims that once sounded like nails on a chalkboard now felt like cocaine. And she couldn’t wait until her next hit.


	14. Chapter 14

Ezra returned from a morning walk to find an empty flat. Antonia had been sleeping when he left, but now… 

She must have gone off to speak with Adam, he decided. So, Ezra locked up and left, wandering over to his college. 

He had made it half-way there when he remembered that Adam was in London that day, working out his next hit. All the other kids were busy with their exams.

Pausing his walk, he found himself next to a payphone. He entered the booth and dialed Antonia’s phone number. It rang for quite a while before she picked up.

*

“Excuse me one moment,” She stopped what she was doing, to shove a cloth in her victim’s mouth, “Though I love hearing your screaming, I just need to gag you while I take this call.”

She pressed the phone’s screen, and realizing that she had gotten some blood on it, wiped it on her victim’s shirt before holding the phone up to her ear, “Who’s this…? Oh, hello angel… I’m just out, you know. Listen to this: the saleswoman at this shop is trying to convince me to get a succulent. Says it’s easy to take care of. I said, excuse me, I don’t need a plant that’s easy, I want a challenge-”

She paused for a moment, “What’s that? Yeah, I’ll be home soon, don’t worry. Just gotta take care of one thing first… Okay love, I’ll see ya.”

She clicked a button on her phone, smiling down at it before returning to her predatory stance. Encircling Sandy, she said, “Seems like we have to cut our fun short. What a shame.”

***

After leaving his job so abruptly, he changed his look, his identity. Used up his inheritance to fund the running away. However, at whatever new flat he stayed at, no matter what identity he assumed, Ezra got letters. Long letters. The product of someone insane and obsessed. 

First, they were declarations of love: _I love you so incredibly much. I was created just to love you, I have no other purpose in life--_

Then pleading: _I was made to serve you, I’m yours. I’m all yours. Just come back and take me, angel. Please--_

Moving onto threatening: _I can’t live without you, I won’t. Any life without you isn’t a life worth living. I can’t stand to be apart from you. I’ll take you back if I have to--_

Ezra was in a constant state of moving now. New flats would reassure him for a week or so, but then the flurry of letters would begin again. And the gifts, oh Lord, the gifts. The most expensive makeup, designer clothes, cologne, jewelry. Much of it dark and gloomy in its style, meant to remind him of Anthony. Each gift was a little piece of him sent bit-by-bit through the post. 

He now understood Leo’s inclination to keep everything Anthony had sent. Ezra had his own trunk of things he had received that was quickly filling up over the months. 

One night he got a phone call which he answered with a cautious, “Hello?”

“Angel,” The breathless voice called out on the other end. 

“Don’t call here.” He said sternly.

“Wait, just hear me out-”

“No.” He said before hanging up. He wouldn’t have expected the sound of his voice to rattle him so. How did he find his phone number? His sister was the only person in the world who had it. 

He quickly called her. And waited, and waited, and waited until it went to voicemail. Shitshitshit.

Ezra ran to the tube station, fidgeting the whole ride up to her house in Highgate. He knocked frantically on her door when he arrived, crying out “Eve? Are you home?” He began to fumble for his copy of her key.

“You don’t want to go in there,” Anthony whispered in his ear. The keys fell to the ground with a clink. He was terrified - frozen in place, facing the door.

“W-what did you do?”

Ezra felt the lightest brush against his hair. Trying to coax him into turning around, coming back to him. Ezra stood firm and closed his eyes. He knew how weak he was, how easily he would fall back in his trap. It would just take a glance, nothing more. 

He collected all the anger he could, “Don’t hurt them. I would never forgive you-”

“I’m not daft, I know that.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“I’d go to the ends of the Earth to find you,” his voice like smooth chocolate, “I love you.”

_He’s lying. All he does is lie and manipulate and trick you._

“I never want to see you again.” Ezra quickly picked up the keys and charged into the house, locking the bolt behind him.

“Eve!”

He ran through the house calling out her name before he heard a thumping from the closet. He threw open the door, and Eve was there with her daughter. Tied up and gagged. 

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” He fell to the ground and untied them quickly, “I’m so sorry this happened.”

As soon as she was free, she slapped him. His head was thrown to the side with the strike. 

Tears pricked the corners of his eyes as she screamed, “Go away, just go away. This is all your fucking fault. I don’t care where you go as long as it’s far away from me and my family.”

And another bridge was burned. 

*

Anthony threw open Lucy’s door and didn’t bother closing it behind him. He charged into the kitchen and opened a bottle, but it was snatched right out of his hands before he could down a single drop. Lucy was standing there, tapping her foot. 

“Where have you been?”

“I don’t know. Give me that-” He tried jumping up to take the bottle back, but she held it aloft, far out of his reach. He scowled, “Fuck you.”

“Fuck you! No more drinking,”

“I’ll drink if I want to.” 

“What’s going on with you?”

He suddenly sobbed, “Ezra says he doesn’t want to see me anymore!” 

Lucy grabbed his arm and hissed in his ear, “I told you to stop contacting him. You said that you stopped.”

“I lied, okay?” He stomped his feet, “You don’t understand, I need to do it,”

“You’re just hurting yourself, Anthony. And it’s hurting your work. You need to stop with this.”

“I’m in love, I can’t help it! I love him so much it hurts. He was going to marry me before everything went to shit!”

“You don’t love him.”

“You can’t tell me anything about love, you’ve never loved anyone.”

“You’re acting like a child, stop it-”

“What are you gonna do about that, abandon me like you abandoned your kid?”

Her face became scarily blank. She grabbed him by the back of the neck, forcing his head down. He was dragged like this out the front door, where she tossed him to the ground like a piece of trash.

“Fuck you! I don’t need you!” He shouted as she slammed her door.

***

“I’m home!” Antonia proclaimed the second she was through the door.

She proceeded to run around the flat in an almost-manic state, getting dressed up, “Angel, let’s go dancing tonight. Remember when we used to go dancing?” 

Ezra didn’t respond.

“Did you hear what I said?” She came over to where Ezra was standing and caught the way his eyes were regarding Antonia. It was a strange look. She asked, “What are you staring at?”

Ezra’s gaze traveled up and down Antonia’s face, suddenly changing into one of adoration, and he purred, “I love you so much.” She bit her lip. He leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to the corner of her mouth. She nuzzled her face into his, drowning in his scent. 

Ezra kissed her where he knew she liked to be kissed. Right at the point where her jaw met her neck. She was helpless when he did that and she let out a little moan. 

He pulled back all of a sudden, “My dear, let’s stay in. Please cook for me tonight.”

“Anything for you,” her eyes filled with such joy, “What do you feel like?”

“Hmm. How about a lovely sushi platter?”

“That sounds great!” Antonia said, “I’ll go shopping for ingredients now.” 

She gave him a final kiss on the forehead, grabbed her coat, and headed off to the nearest grocery store. 

As soon as she was out, Ezra carefully unfolded the paper he had taken from her pocket.

He fell to the ground as he took in what he saw.

_Toni’s personal hit list:_  
_<strike>Angella Michael</strike>_  
_<strike>Uriel Christian</strike>_  
_<strike>Alexander Sandalphon</strike>_  
_Frances Lorde_  


_Oh, Jesus Christ. Jesus fucking Christ._ His breath caught in his throat. This was his fault. Fuck. This was completely his fault for trusting Anthony yet again. 

He should have stabbed her the second she set foot into the cottage, then everything would have been alright. Hell, he should have made sure she was dead during their encounter in her flat all those years ago.

He read the list over and over again. He examined the frantic scribbles, the messy writing so undeniably Anthony’s. He thought that maybe she had changed; maybe she seemed a bit better, a bit more normal than she had been years earlier. But of course not-- of course! He should have known, you can never change a psychopath’s true nature.

By the time the door began to unlock, Ezra pulled himself to his feet. He had imagined the fates of each of his coworkers more times than he could count. 

“Love?” Antonia called out, “You’ll never forgive me. I almost decided to buy a premade package of sushi instead of-” 

“Explain this!” Ezra tried to throw the paper at her, and it floated down gently. She grabbed it out of the air and examined it.

“You took that from my pocket?” She said indignantly.

“What the hell did you do?”

The corner of Antonia’s mouth twitched into a smile, “Oh, well I guess the cat’s out of the bag now. I killed them.”

“Oh fuck-” Ezra ran his hand through his hair.

“And I did it gladly. It hasn’t felt this good in ages!”

“Jesus Christ Anthony!” He tried to fall back.

She moved closer to him, “I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t take revenge for what they did to you.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“They hurt you so bad when they took you from me.” She stroked his cheek gently.

“You’re talking about-” he took a shuddering breath, “The - the interrogation? They were doing their jobs.”

“You can’t believe that now, angel. They deserved everything they got,” she took ahold of his panicking hands, “They tore us apart. Correction: they _tried_ to tear us apart. So, I say fuck them. Fuck everyone but us, remember?”

“I knew them, for Christ’s sake. I worked with them for years! I met their kids and their spouses-”

“Look what they did to you. Can’t you see? It’s unforgivable. They did this to themselves-”

“No - I did this to them. Oh good God.” He ripped his hands away and tried to move farther back, but only meeting the wall.

“What?”

“This is all my fault!” Ezra heaved a panicking breath.

“Don’t say that, angel.” Antonia hissed in a fury, grabbing a fist full of his hair, “Don’t you dare even think it. I swear to God, you have done nothing wrong.”

“Anthony - stop” He tried to shove her away.

“This is what you needed, my angel. This is what they deserved.”

Ezra took a breath and tried to compose himself, “Am-am I to assume that Frances is still alive?”

“She is, unfortunately.” Antonia said, “Would you like to do the honors?”

“Jesus Christ-”

“C’mon, Ezra, don’t tell me you haven’t fantasized about killing her. Especially after all she did to you.”

“What she did-?”

“That fucker tried to play God, tried to mess with your fucking head day in and day out. You’re sorta right in that they were just doing their jobs. They were doing the jobs that _she_ ordered them to do.”

“_This_ is why I got away from you-”

“No! They took you away from me. Everything would have been fine if they’d just-”

“I was such a fool to trust you again-”

“I know you, angel. You feel something inside you right now that wants to thank me.”

“How could I forget what you’re capable of-?”

“I know you. You’re just as capable as me, my love.”

Ezra stilled his struggling, and shot her a defiant look, “You don’t know me at all.”

Antonia maintained her hold, though her face faltered somewhat, “I know you better than anyone. I’m the only one who understands you.”

“You don’t know a thing about me.”

“You keep telling yourself that, angel. I know what you really want. I know what you’ve imagined in that pretty head of yours.”

“So what?” Ezra breathed, “So what if I’ve fantasized about it, that doesn’t mean I’ll let myself do it.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not like you.”

She let out a huff of disbelief, “After all this time, you still think-”

“I think you are a monster.”

“Be careful Ezra,” she cautioned, her fist clenching harder at his shirt, “I might be capable of more than you expect.”

“You want to kill me? Go ahead.”

She froze and sputtered for a second, “Of course I don’t want to kill you. How could you even-”

The phone rang out. Both their heads turned sharply towards the intruding sound. 

Ezra took her by the wrists and easily unhanded himself from her, whispering, “Now you know how I felt,” before walking over to pick up the phone. 

Antonia chewed on her lip, stuck right where Ezra left her. 

“Hello…” He said in a cheery tone. His hand flew up to grab at his chest, and his voice grew dark, “Oh - oh dear. Do not say a word… Not a word. We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

He placed the phone down carefully and glanced across the room. Antonia looked up at him expectantly.

“I’m afraid Adam’s been detained.”


	15. Chapter 15

Antonia’s hands were quivering as she loaded her gun. “Jesus Christ - Just stop it,” She murmured to herself - though that did nothing to still her shaking.

Ezra was waiting by the open door, “Are you coming, dear?”

Her head shot up, she let out a breath in disbelief, “Course.” The gun was shoved in her pocket, and she followed him. 

They walked quickly downstairs, almost running. 

“Fuck, how do we get to London?” she said breathily as they found themselves in the bustle of the street, “Bus is gonna take too long-” Ezra cut her off with a cough.

He nonchalantly pointed to the car parked next to them. 

“Right. This is bringing back memories,” she said, walking over and smashing the window with the butt of her gun, “Go on then.”

“Thank you.” Ezra nodded, brushing the glass off the car seat with the sleeve of his coat, “Get in the passenger seat.” He said while beginning to undo the right wires. 

Antonia leaning over the door said, “Not a chance.”

“I said,” Ezra’s tone grew more demanding, “Get in the passenger seat.” 

“I’ll let you drive when Hell freezes over.”

“Well, Satan better put on a coat, because I am driving us to London.”

Antonia scowled and finally relented. She closed the door and walked around the car, crossing her arms as she slipped into the seat. She felt entirely wrong on the opposite side of the car - she always did. 

The engine began to purr. 

“Well done, angel,” Antonia said.

“No need to flatter me,” Ezra said, pulling the car away from the sidewalk, “Don’t think that you’re forgiven, just because I have put other matters over arguing with you.”

“Ngk.”

At a stoplight, Ezra nervously tapped on the steering wheel, “So,” he began, “You’ve gotten him arrested-”

“_We’ve_ gotten him arrested.” Antonia corrected.

“Adam has been arrested. Now, what is our plan of action?”

“You tell me. You’re the one who wanted to rush off to London,”

“You would have left him to his own devices?”

“Ngh - no, of course not. That would be unforgivable.”

“Didn’t you have any plan at all?”

“Angel, that’s why I came to you.”

“Surely you had some idea.”

“How the fuck should I know what to do - I’m useless at dealing with cops! My strategy has always been to just not get caught - that’s as far as my plans go. Both times I did, I got hauled off to jail as soon as the handcuffs were on. You’ve somehow managed to avoid it thus far, so, you tell me: what’s the plan?”

“I’m… I’m still figuring that out. At the moment I’m just praying he listened to my advice to stay quiet,”

“Oh, not a chance.”

“Dear Lord.”

***

Ezra got an unmarked box in the post a month after he had last seen Anthony. Before he even opened the package, he began to make arrangements to move once again. He had gone through the process of falsifying documents so many times that it hardly took any effort anymore. 

He’d erased more of himself each time, cutting off contact with more and more people, changing details again and again. The only constant throughout the whole process was London. That was the last bridge to be burned.

The box traveled south with him to the new cottage, though it took him a while to build up the courage to open it. It finally happened when he got incredibly drunk one night and curiosity got the best of him. The gift that was found inside only left him with more questions.

_Sorry Angel_

The cassette tape had that written on it but was otherwise spotless. No clues as to what was contained on it. Aziraphale went out to the shops the next day, and bought something that could play cassettes from a charity shop. 

For a few days, the tape rested on the top of the cassette player, and it remained unplayed. He let himself drift closer and closer to it, tempting himself into listening to it. Scared of what hell might come out of the speaker the second he hit play. 

He finally had to get drunk to listen to it. He winced when he switched the machine on, waiting for the sounds of screaming or insane rambling or something equally terrifying. What actually emerged from the machine was worse than any of that: a soft piano, a familiar voice. Tears began to well up in his eyes. And five years later he would hear the same words, though mumbled drunkenly rather than sung.

_Love of my life, you've hurt me_   
_You've broken my heart and now you leave me_   
_Love of my life, can't you see?_   
_Bring it back, bring it back_   
_Don't take it away from me-_

He tore the tape out of the machine. Another threat would have been easy. Another thing to add to the box of things that proved that he had the right idea by running away. But this… what was he meant to make of this?

Out of all the gifts and letters and threats that were sent, the cassette tape was the first one that ended up in the trash. It was also the last gift he received until Antonia showed up on his doorstep.

*

_”Fuck you! I don’t need you!”_

That was possibly the least true thing he had ever said.

Anthony tried to get back to work on his own, but he was never any good at screening his clients. He just got lazy with it. And, being lazy meant you picked the wrong people, which led to him being caught in a sting about a month later. 

_“Maybe some time behind bars will do you some good._

“No, please, Lucy - this is my one phone call. I apologize. Whatever I said, I didn’t mean it. Please get me out of this-” But he was met with a soft electronic hum, his pleading fell on deaf ears.

“Shit!” He yelled at the top of his lungs, slamming the phone into the receiver, “Arghhhh!”

He was actually in jail, he was actually going to face a judge, and he was actually going back to prison. He had no one to protect him now. He’d lost everyone.

_Music played in the background, ‘I want to break free, I want to break free’_

_“I’m a freak,” he sobbed._

_“Shh, my darling.” She stroked Anthony’s hair, “No you’re not.”_

_“Why do I feel like this?”_

_“It’s just a part of you. A wonderful, unique, fun part of life. I want you to do whatever makes you feel good, whether it’s being a girl or a boy or both or neither. And, I’ll be here for you, no matter what.”_

_Meanwhile, the song continued, “I want to break free from your lies, you’re so self-satisfied, I don’t need you.”_

Freddie always told the truth.

“Okay… you can do this. You can do this Anthony. Just gotta-” He paced around his cell, rapidly losing courage the longer he stared at the makeshift noose, “Oh God, I can’t do this. Oh shitshitshitshitshit!”

“Shut the fuck up!” echoed from down the line of cells.

He shouted right back, “I’m having a moment here!” 

He sucked in a breath and took the hastily knotted up sheets in hand. Why did air never taste so good before? He almost felt all the hands that at one point had tightened around his throat, too many for a lifetime. Would it feel the same?

Shit, not breathing hurt. He remembered, it hurt a lot. 

How would Ezra have killed him, if he had agreed? He wanted that. He would have gladly taken that. 

***

Adam set down the police station phone, feeling reassured by Ezra’s voice. He took a breath and allowed himself to be led into a bright, almost-empty room. He stared at himself in the mirror on the wall as he was being sat in a chair - it was a one-way mirror no doubt. If it hadn’t been for the handcuffs on him, you wouldn’t have been able to tell which was the investigator and which was the suspect. The man with a grip on his shoulder looked as though he were no more than a few years older than Adam, and he seemed rather more frightful of Adam than Adam was of him. 

He expected to be left alone for some time after the young policeman left, but was pleasantly surprised when a familiar face walked into the room. However, he didn’t immediately start the questioning.

Adam was sat across from the officer who was examining him from behind thick lenses. He had the appearance of professionality but wasn’t totally put together. Like a kid dressing up for career day at school. For a long while, the only sound was his tapping foot.

“Hello, Adam,” He said finally, “I’m Special Agent Pulsifer. I would say ‘nice to meet you’, but we’ve met before, haven’t we?”

“Why are you so nervous?”

“Ah” he breathed, “You noticed that. I’m not usually the one that does this bit, but we - er, my department rather - have found ourselves short-staffed at the moment. I hope you’ll bear with me.”

“That must be tough.”

“I have to ask you a few questions, okay?”

Adam nodded.

“Before that, do you want some water? Some crisps?” 

He shook his head.

He checked his old-fashioned watch, “Alright then, I’m starting the interview at 10:23 am.” He said to the recording, “Present in the room is myself - er - Agent Newton Pulsifer and the suspect Adam Morningstar. So, Adam -”

A voice interrupted over the speaker, “Uh, sir? You haven’t switched on the recording.”

“Haven’t I?” Newt said, fumbling with the buttons of the machine on the desk, “Is - is that on now?”

“No - wait a sec,” said the other officer from the speaker.

The officer that had brought Adam to the room made a reappearance to help Newt with the machine. Working together, they eventually managed to start the recording.

“Oh! There we go - there we go. Thank you so much, Raphael, you can go now. Interview starting at 10:28 am. Newt Puslifer and Adam Morningstar present. Adam, thank you for your patience… Can you tell me what happened?”

“Why don’t you tell me what you know first? And then I can tell you everything you’ve got wrong.”

Newt paused. Tried to remember his training. He was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to give away everything at the start, but it couldn’t hurt to prompt him a little. 

“I know you were spending a bit of time around our office the other week. I met you, in fact. But you don’t have to trust my word for it, we’ve got you on camera.”

Adam shrugged, “So?”

“So, you admit you were?”

“Yeah. I mean, no point in denying it, huh, if it’s like you say. But what’s that got to do with anything? Not like you can arrest me for walking around a building.”

“Yes - we can actually - er it’s called trespassing. But if that were the extent of your problems, I’m afraid you wouldn’t be here right now. Can you tell me what you were doing?”

Adam shook his head.

“These are very serious charges, Adam. If you don’t say anything, then I can’t help you.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t say anything about it.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not my business.”

Newt pushed his glasses up his nose, “Where were you the night of the 17th?” 

“London.”

“You go to school in Oxford? What were you doing there?”

Adam shrugged, “Dun remember. Why do you wanna know?”

“Well, we have detained you on suspicion of murder in the first degree. Does that jog your memory a bit?” Newt winced at his own words, he didn’t intend to sound as harsh as he did. 

Adam seemed unperturbed, “Right, so you think that I… what? Killed a guy?”

“We have reasonable evidence to suspect that you were involved in the deaths of two MI5 special agents.”

Adam’s eyes widened, “That - that wasn’t me.”

“I’m afraid you need to clear up a few things for me before we can be sure.”

The interview continued: Newt asking, Adam denying.

“We have evidence of you breaking into our records. Records that contained their home addresses.” Newt said wearily, “The home addresses where they were killed.”

“I didn’t do it, I swear,” Adam said for about the hundredth time.

“You were in London at the time each of them died. You have yet to give us an adequate alibi. Frankly, I’m feeling quite frustrated right now.”

“So am I!” Adam proclaimed. 

The exchange had reached a dead-end. Adam was rather determined to say that he was not involved. And despite all his posturing about the proof they had - all of it was circumstantial. There was no evidence of his presence at each of the crime scenes, no smoking gun, only suspicion. They couldn’t hold him forever on pure suspicion, and they certainly couldn’t convict him on that. What they needed was to catch him out on a lie, or better yet, get a confession out of him. But that seemed to be off the table. 

Newt sighed and left the interrogation room. He came into the room behind the one-way mirror. The new hires had been carefully watching as part of their acclimation to the job. He wiped his glasses on his shirt more out of habit than any real need to keep them clean, “Does anyone else want to step in?”

His offer was met with silence.

“Surely one of you passed interrogation 101.”

Raphael and Sam sat still, eyes examining the wall and the floor. Neither one wanting to volunteer. 

“No?” His old flip-phone began to buzz in his pocket.

Newt felt incredibly overwhelmed before his phone rang. But after, he was drowning in stress. The voice on the other end of the line said that another body had been found. He rushed out of the room and left the building feeling quite terribly sad and frustrated and lost. 

Another coworker gone. They were being picked off one-by-one. 

He leaned against the side of the building, and slipped down into a sitting position, burying his head in his hands. 

How had he ended up here? A series of unfortunate events, that’s how. Nothing to do with his own competence. He took his badge off and examined it, wondering what was so special about him that it was part of his job title.

If someone else were killed, then it meant Adam wasn’t involved - or wasn’t the one doing the killing at least. He was in custody since early morning, and they had been keeping an eye on him since he arrived in London after an anonymous tip came in about his location. 

Newt knew better than to question the credibility of these sorts of anonymous tips, as they were often - in his experience - sort of information laundering. Intel found in a less-than-legal manner given a credibility boost by having it be reported as an anonymous tip. 

Could he hide behind the building forever? It wouldn’t be proper, but he couldn’t bring himself to go through the embarrassment of quitting. Wouldn’t it just be so much easier to just stop showing up? 

But - oh dear - how uncomfortable would it be to be confronted after pulling a stunt like that? More discomfort than he could bear. Better to just keep chugging along day-after-day.

He got up, brushed himself off with the practiced ease of someone who has done a lot of falling down - and thus a lot of getting up and brushing oneself off. There was a suspect waiting, and the country’s safety in his hands. Right, back to work.

If Adam didn’t commit the murders, perhaps he knew who did.

He walked back up to the interrogation room, head hanging. Trying to come up with a few more questions to ask Adam. He walked his way through the hallways until he came across his department. It was so much more silent lately. Not only had several of his coworkers been killed, but the rest were sending resignation letters faster than a lead balloon goes down. 

He used his keycard to get into the observation room. The sheepish trainees glanced away looking more uncomfortable than usual. Newt checked through the one-way mirror only to see that it was empty. 

He pointed, “Er, where did he go?”

“Someone came in to take him away,” Sam offered. 

“W-what? Who? When? He wasn’t set to be released - we still had twenty hours or so for questioning.”

They shrugged.

“Oh - I’m going to be in so much trouble.”


	16. Chapter 16

Newt ran away from the interrogation room, he had to tell someone. They had to set out a search team, look through the CCTV, send dogs to sniff him out - something! Newt sprinted out the building again, figuring that he can’t have gone far. He looked left and right down the street. The London bustle was no different from normal. There wasn’t a young man running away, nor one being taken away by a mysterious stranger, nor anyone that even looked a bit suspicious. 

And then he was tapped on the shoulder. When Newt spun around, all the blood rushed out of his head and pooled in his legs in a desperate attempt to get his body to run. 

“Erm… Hello Newt,” said Ezra, “It’s been a long time.”

“Mr… Fell…” Newt sputtered.

“Oh,” he pointed to Newt’s badge, “You’re a special agent now. Well done!”

Finally, his legs got the message and he took the first step in running away before he was grabbed, and someone whispered low in his ear, “Oh no, you’re coming with us.” 

*

“My little rebellious son,” Lucy said to the boy in the passenger seat, “We haven’t spoken in how long?”

He didn’t respond.

“Come now, Adam. I just did you a massive favor, didn’t I? You would have been put in prison if it weren’t for me.”

She paused to let the words sink in. She saw his face begin to soften.

“Now, tell me what you did to get yourself locked up.”

When he stayed silent, she added, “Sweetie, you know I’ll always be there for you. Whatever you did, I don’t care.”

“But you weren’t.” Adam finally spoke, “You weren’t there for me.”

She took in a deep, disappointed sigh, “You have been talking to Anthony too much.”

Adam’s voice slowly began to raise, “You were never there for me. You didn’t take care of me, I was raised by a nanny while you were off killing people.”

She gasped, “I do not kill people,”

“Yeah, right! That really isn’t a good justification for leaving your kid without a mum. If it had been drugs or gambling or anything else stopping you, I might have been able to forgive it. But why would you choose _that_ over me?”

She slammed on the brakes, screeching the car to an abrupt stop. Ignoring the other drivers’ flurry of honks, she snapped, “I put food on the table! I would appreciate it if you showed an ounce— _an ounce_— of gratitude. You were taken care of!”

“Mrs. Young took care of me. Not you.” 

Her fingers were turning white around the steering wheel with how hard she was clutching it, “Do you know how much I put on the line to get you out of that little scrape you found yourself in?”

“I didn’t need you to break me out.”

“You would rather go to prison than see me?” she chuckled forcefully, “I’m sorry, but I sincerely doubt that-”

“No, Antonia and Ezra would have come to save me.” And then he added quietly, “They’re my family now, not you.”

A dark look began to loom over her features. She kept her eyes on the road and began driving at a controlled speed. When she spoke again, it was off-handedly, “Wasn’t it weird how the police were just waiting for you? It was obviously a set-up. Someone tipped them off to where you were.” 

Adam pondered this. His heart sank as he remembered the half a dozen police officers that pounced on him. They knew exactly what to expect from him.

“Anthony knew where you were going to be, didn’t he?” she whispered.

“No…I don’t believe it,” he said in a way that revealed that he was starting to be convinced.

“He ratted you out. I’m sorry sweetie; you just can’t trust psychopaths.” She gave him a soft glance, “But you can trust me. I will always be here for you.”

*

“Really, my dear? Kidnapping?” Ezra huffed.

“Oh, that’s where you draw the line, is it?” 

“I’d say we’re far past the point where there are any lines, but I’m just calling attention to the fact that this is unnecessary. I certainly don’t condone it.”

“Unnecessary? He was about to book it, angel!”

“Excuse me?” Newt said from the backseat, feeling like he was being entirely overlooked in the conversation, “What’s going on? Where is Adam?”

The pair exchanged a look, and Ezra said, “We were about to ask you the same question. He’s not in the building? Being interrogated?”

“You didn’t sneak in and take him?” 

“Sneak in?” Ezra frowned, “What’s all this? Has security really relaxed so much since I left?”

“It’s a bit chaotic in there. We haven’t found replacements for everyone who got… killed.” Newt gulped.

“Shit!” Antonia suddenly cried out, “I know who’s responsible then.”

“Yes, I should think so,” Ezra responded.

“No, not that— it’s just…” she threw her hands in her face, “This whole thing reeks of Lucy. She would have arranged to get him arrested in the first place. Let me guess, you got an anonymous tip?”

“Wait, did you say Lucy?” Newt gasped, “Adam’s mother’s name is Lucy. Is there a possibility-?”

She waved a dismissive hand, “We’re miles past that. Try to keep up Newt.” 

“Antonia… you don’t blame anyone else? Any single other person for the mess we’re in?”

“She is the manipulative bitch that-”

“Excuse me. I’ll let you ramble on in a moment. But first, answer this: who is the one who killed the MI5 agents that lead to this apparent security blindspot? Who is the one who convinced Adam to choose riskier ways of going about his plan? Who-”

“Who’s the one who didn’t stop him from getting arrested? Against his promises, I might add.”

“I certainly did not promise immunity from the criminal justice system! I’m not an idiot Anthony--”

Their argument was interrupted by Newt’s shaky breaths, “You were the ones who…”

“It was not me!” Ezra said, affronted. 

Newt began to fumble, looking for his handcuffs that had been left in his office, “You’re under arrest!” 

“Yeah good luck with that,” Antonia gave him a look through the rearview mirror, “Say, if you’re hiding something from us…”

“I’m not!” Newt held his hands up.

She hooked an arm around the seat to glare at him, “I’ve got ways of making you talk. Don’t doubt it.”

“Honestly!” he cried out, “Mr. Fell, you believe me, don’t you? He doesn’t have to… make me talk.” 

“_She._” Ezra said sternly. Antonia shot him an appreciative glance that he only returned for a second, “She certainly doesn’t have to. I think you’re telling the truth.” 

He let out a sigh of relief that was quickly shattered when Ezra shouted desperately, “What the hell are we going to do!” 

“Calm down, angel.” 

“Everything is going wrong!” 

“We’ll think of something. Take a deep breath.”

Instead of doing that, he looked back at their hostage sitting politely in the backseat, fiddling with his keycard. The keycard that granted access to interrogation rooms. No matter how sneaky you were, you still needed one of those to get inside. 

“Frances must know something about it.” Ezra concluded, “She must have granted her access to Adam.”

A slow smile began to creep along Antonia’s face, “Shall we give her a visit?”

*

Pepper stepped out of her exam, thoroughly knackered by the process of writing three essays in an hour and a half. She opened her phone to touch base with the others, but Wensley and Brian didn’t answer. Nor did Adam, strangely. The former were probably still in the middle of their exams, but Adam was never one to be out of contact. 

She went to go knock on Antonia’s door, hoping that she might be able to give some reassurance that Adam was okay. But when her knocks turned to pounding after going unanswered, she ended up pushing the door open. Antonia had left her door unlocked and ajar. 

The flat was uncharacteristically a mess. She stepped over the things that had been knocked onto the floor, trying to rearrange the struggle that had caused such disarray. 

“Antonia? Ezra?” she called out to the empty flat.

*

“It is quite empty,” Ezra looked around the plain corridor that, from his memories, usually had at least a few people marching intently from place to place.

“Are you okay being here?” Antonia gave him a worried look that he brushed off.

“I’m fine, dear. Let’s get this over with.” The three of them headed into the lift that was opened with Newt’s keycard. Ezra focused on his mobile as they rode the elevator all the way to the top floor; he fiddled around with the little keyboard for a moment before replacing it in his pocket.

“You’re not going to… kill her, are you?” Newt gulped.

“Not before she tells us everything we need to know, at least.”

“No, we are not going to kill her,” Ezra said, “I’m afraid I must insist on that.”

“Look at you two; all holier-than-thou, just because you don’t want to kill this lady.”

Ezra shot her a look, “Don’t be ridiculous. And don’t do anything threatening when we get there.” 

“Here’s a counterargument: what if _she fucking deserves it?_”

Ezra responded with an eye roll, and turned to the younger man who had tried to keep his mouth shut as much as possible, “May I ask, why haven’t you left along with everyone else?”

Newt shrugged, “It’s my job to stay here.”

“It was their jobs too. but that didn’t stop them. You have a lot of dedication, Newt. That’s incredibly admirable.”

“It’s not that,” Newt said sheepishly, “I guess it would be embarrassing to quit.” The lift doors opened to the floor they wanted to get to, but Antonia and Ezra were frozen staring at him. 

“You stayed at a job that, for all you know, might be putting you in mortal danger… out of embarrassment?”

“Well… when you put it like that-”

“Excuse me,” a voice called out, unperturbed by the party she found on the floor of her office, “I’m terribly sorry to interrupt, but what are you all doing here?” 

“Frances,” Ezra nodded in her direction, “We have a lot to talk about.”

Antonia rushed out of the lift to shove her back. She only responded by cocking an eyebrow tauntingly, “You’ve changed.”

“Fuck you,” Her hand snaked down to grab her gun, but Ezra’s grip on her wrist put a chokehold on her wrath. She hissed out a breath between gritted teeth.

“Let me guess. If I don’t cooperate, you’ll sic your friend on me?” 

“Oh, she’s not my friend,” Ezra said quickly before adding, “She’s my ex-fiancée and right now she is incredibly angry with you. So, I suggest you tread carefully.” 

“Yeah. Tread carefully.” Antonia smiled. 

Frances hummed in a friendly way, “Newton, you are excused.”

“Oh thank God,” Newt let out a breath, and punched a button on the lift to take him far away from that floor. 

“A drink for either of you?”

“No time, I’m afraid. We need to know where Adam is right now.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about-”

“You do,” Ezra said, “You know everyone that comes in and out of the building. He was here, then someone came in to fetch him, off the record. Where are they headed?”

“And why should I tell you?” She turned serious, “You know what? I will tell you what’s going to happen. You two are going to stay here with me while Newton calls for reinforcements. Can you guess what happens next?”

Antonia snapped, “What’s next is I shoot your fucking brains out-”

“Ah ah,” Frances shook her finger, “I don’t think your boyfriend would like that.”

She shot a look at Ezra who’s hand on her wrist had only tightened. “My dear,” he warned, “This has to stop.”

“But she’s-”

Ezra spoke to Frances, quite openly ignoring Antonia, “You are going to tell us where Adam is headed. And you will do so _not_ because of threats of violence, but because it’s the right thing to do.”

She smiled knowingly. 

Antonia thought, _is he serious?_

*

“Something is wrong, I swear!” Pepper shouted. She hadn’t stopped pacing since she first stepped through the door.

“You call this messy?” Brian looked around, “It’s way tidier than my dorm.”

“Actually, the island of rubbish in the Pacific Ocean is tidier than your dorm,” added Wensley.

“Guys, focus,” Pepper groaned in frustration, “Everyone is gone. Something bad must be going on.”

“If something went wrong, they would tell us,” said Brian, “Surely.”

Wensley nervously adjusted his glasses, “Maybe they didn’t have time to,”

“Exactly! They didn’t even have time to close the door properly, do you think they would have had enough time to give us a message?”

“Okay, maybe you have a point.” He relented.

“I’ll start tracking him,” Wensley was already pulling out his laptop. After tapping a few keys his face fell, “Uhh, guys. His phone GPS says he’s in MI5.”

The three of them exchanged worried looks before bursting into a shouting match.

“I _told_ you—”

“We need to break him out—”

“Finally you’re making some sense—”

“How exactly are we going to—”

“_Screw that_, we need to go right now—”

“Plan or no, let’s go get him!”

Oxford streets began to echo out with the roar of three motorbike engines, as Pepper, Wensley, and Brian made their way out of the city. They weaved in and out of the M40 traffic to London, going far faster than their bikes were ever intended to go.

*

“You’re going to tell us where to go,” Ezra repeated, stubbornly refusing to meet Antonia’s indignant glare.

She began to pace around the room, “I admit, I admire the audacity. Marching in here, demanding things of me as if you didn’t walk out without a word years ago. You forfeited your right to a civil conversation.”

“Perhaps,” he shrugged, “But let’s stay focused on the greater good. A minor is in danger, and you allowed it to happen.”

“He’s with his mother, how much danger can he be in?”

“Your friend Lucy is a known criminal. She’s going to create another monster out of Adam if she’s not stopped.” Antonia coughed to interrupt and gestured to herself as an example. Ezra went on, “If not for the greater good, then possibly for your own good: If you keep letting her get away, eventually people will think you are in cahoots with her.” She scoffed so Ezra pressed forward, “That’s not exactly false, is it?”

“You, of all people, lecturing me… So what? We both slept with the enemy.”

“Literally or metaphorically?”

She chuckled at that.

“It’s an honest question,” Ezra persisted.

“Why not both?” 

“A romance with a side of trading away state secrets,” he shook his head, “I should have blown the whistle on you ages ago.”

“And I should have had you done away with ages ago; we both have regrets.”

Ezra hushed Antonia with a squeeze of her wrist, “How exactly would you have done away with me?”

“I assure you, I got a lot more for my bartering with Lucy than just romance.”

“That’s right.” he nodded, “Of course. You would have sent an assassin after me. How else?”

“How else, indeed,” she smiled wistfully, “You will both be in prison soon, so, lucky old me, I don’t have to bother with all that.”

And finally, while Antonia had been watching this whole interaction, Ezra made momentary eye contact. And God, he looked like such a bastard, he had to have something up his sleeve. Her fist unclenched as she put all her trust into his hands. 

“Are you sure you don’t want to tell us where Adam is being taken?” Ezra finally let go of her to reach into his own pocket, tugging his cell phone out, revealing that it had been recording the entire conversation. He waved the phone around teasingly, “Because I now have evidence of your corruption right here.” 

Antonia gasped, “Oh! You brilliant thing!” 

But to their utter dismay, the woman across from them began to laugh an honest-to-god, full-on chuckle, “You both are a minute away from being arrested, and you think that I can’t make a cell phone disappear from police evidence? That’s absurd.”

Ezra’s cocky stance with his phone began to deflate as the laughter crushed every last hope he had. As soon as his nervous fidgeting began again, Antonia grabbed his arm to pull him out of his frozen state and down the stairwell. They flew down to the ground floor while Frances calmly raised her voice behind them, “There’s nowhere for you to go.” Despite that, they ran. 

They made their way through the wide hallways, constantly checking over their shoulders all the while. So much so that they missed the danger right in front of them. 

“Freeze!” And they both stopped in place. A sole special agent stood in their way. Despite his nervousness, he was prepared this time with a gun pointed straight ahead. 

“No reinforcements?” Antonia asked.

“They probably have to send in people from Scotland Yard,” Ezra said, far too calmly for Newt’s liking, “It’s not too far, but traffic in this hour is a nightmare.”

“I said freeze!” Newt shouted again, desperately. Unfortunately for him, Ezra continued his approach, holding out a steady hand. 

“Newt,” he flinched as Ezra touched his shoulder, “Don’t be afraid to quit this job if that’s what you want to do. I’m sure there are much nicer and safer places that would love to employ you.”

His threatening hold on the gun faltered, and the pair walked out of MI5 unscathed. Ezra grabbed Antonia’s hand at the distant sound of sirens, and they ran to their stolen car. Plan A had failed. Plan B had failed. Plan C didn’t quite exist yet, but they were working on it.

*

The drive away from his arrest had been relentless and never-ending, with no idea where he was headed. The car became a confessional. At his mother’s prying questions, Adam began to tearfully admit to everything he had done and everything he had planned to do. Meanwhile, Lucy’s stony face revealed nothing.

“Are you disappointed in me?” Adam asked his mother.

She shook her head, “On the contrary, I’ve never been more proud.”

Adam was shocked, “But… but…”

“I’m incredibly proud of you. I always wondered whether you would be able to follow along in my footsteps, and you didn’t even need my guidance to do so.” She smiled toothily, “This is your destiny.”

With each reassurance, she was spinning a web tighter around him, saying that she forgave him for running away. That she wasn’t angry with him any longer. That she would always be there to support him, no matter what. The feeling was comforting rather than constricting. 

And then she made her proposal, “In fact… why don’t we work together?”

He stared at her, “You mean…”

“Yes. You can be an assassin for me. We’d be the best duo in the business.” 

“I don’t want to kill anyone else,” Adam said quietly.

“We could make so much money together, and we’d never have to be apart again.” 

Adam’s ears perked up at the distant sound of motorbikes. Out the windshield, he saw three familiar people approaching on the opposite end of the M40, nearly about to pass their car. The buzz brought him out of the hypnosis that he had been put under. Even if Antonia had betrayed him, and even if he had done terrible things, his friends were always there for him. And he would always be there for them.

“What do you say?” She smiled at him. 

He suddenly lurched forward to grab the steering wheel and swerved the car off the road.


	17. Chapter 17

“Do you have any better ideas?” Ezra said, just nearly going over the speed limit, “One. Single. Better idea?”

Antonia wrinkled her nose.

He went on, “I know they’re children, but they are extremely bright. They will help us find him.”

“But don’t you feel…?” 

“Like a failure? Turning right around and going back to Oxford? Why, yes.” 

“Ngk--” she leaned against the window despondently, “I just wish we had at least a clue as to where he is. For all we know, he could be heading in the complete opposite direction right now.”

*

The Them were focused on their mission, but not so focused that they didn’t see a car flip over on the other end of the motorway. They pulled over to check on the driver and pushed their way past the other people who had gathered around to see what had happened.

“I’ve got 999 on hold,” one bystander said, “They must have passed out behind the wheel or something; it was so sudden.”

Another bystander shook their head, “How horrible.”

“The people are still in there,” Brian pointed to the upside-down car, “What if it blows up?”

A few of the people gathered around began to step away. Brian, Pepper, and Wensley cautiously stepped forward. Pepper leaned down to peek through the window and saw the two passengers passed out, hanging upside down from their seatbelts. One of them looked familiar. 

“Adam?” she said.

The three of them immediately charged forward to pull him out of the car. 

*

There had been the horrible screech of metal; the whole world thrashing around as she tried to regain control of the spinning car. The car crash seemed to go on and on, endlessly throwing her body against the car interior until she blacked out. And then all too soon, she began to rouse, her eyelids feeling a hundred times heavier than usual. When she managed to peek them open, she became utterly confused at the upside-down view out the window. Trees seemed to be coming out of the sky, and the ground looked to be made of clouds.

And then the events of the past hour came back to her. She fought through her pain to turn her head and blink at the passenger seat. Her son was there. His limp body was being carefully unbuckled and carried away.

The sight was like a shot of adrenaline. Her arms that had been hanging above (or below) her head suddenly were able to move, shooting over to undo her seatbelt. She crashed down onto the ceiling of the car and began to crawl towards the open door. There, a couple of people were waiting to help pull her out of the wreckage. As soon as she was out, she got to her feet, wobbly but standing nonetheless.

“You should really sit down,” the young woman advised her. She pushed her away, frantically searching for Adam. She found him lying on his back, being attended to by a boy about his age and began to limp in that direction. The crowds gathered around began to scream and run away when she pulled out a gun, though she hardly noticed. 

“Brian!” the young woman called out, and he turned away from Adam to see a gun pointed directly at him. He scrambled back.

Lucy knelt down to grab Adam’s arm and drag him away from the people who had taken him out of the wreckage. 

“Get away from him!” a voice called out to her.

Her head snapped up at the sound of the shouting, and she saw the three young people standing by. She pointed her gun to them, screaming, “He’s mine! You won’t take him away from me!”

“You don’t own him!” Pepper pleaded, taking a step towards her.

“Back the fuck up!”

They looked at each other, trying to come up with a plan to get them out of this mess. 

*

Antonia began to growl as traffic slowed to a crawl. Her growl turned into a strangled scream as they stopped moving entirely with no signs that the traffic would be letting up any time soon. 

To make matters worse, the car they ended up with was perhaps the worst in terms of entertainment value. She discovered that the car radio was broken as well as the CD player. The eject button was entirely stuck, leaving the car with only a _Best of Queen_ album for entertainment. Not only that, but the CD was scratched: “We Are the Champions” was the only track that the player wouldn’t skip over. You can be sure that Antonia took it to mean that the universe was mocking them. 

As Freddie Mercury went on and on and on, Antonia cried out, “Angel, I’m going to die in this traffic.”

“Don’t be dramatic.”

“I’m not. I will literally die if we don’t get moving in the next ten seconds.”

“I can’t make these people move. There must be an accident or something up ahead,” Ezra tapped at the steering wheel.

“You know what? You have to go off-road,” Antonia pointed to the shoulder of the motorway, “Loads of space there.”

“I’m fairly sure you are not allowed to do that. Plus that would be terrible for the vehicle’s suspension--”

“This isn’t our car,” she rolled her eyes, “Please. For heaven’s sake, we need to move.” 

“Oh, alright.” Ezra swerved down to the shoulder and began to drive past all the gridlocked traffic, “But, dear Lord, if we get pulled over for this.” 

Soon enough, an upturned car came into view, and Ezra said, “Well, that explains the traffic.”

“Yeah- oh.” Antonia squinted at the wreckage and began fumbling for the door, “Oh fuck!” 

“Wait until I’ve stopped the car, dear,” but Antonia was already stumbling out. He slammed on the brakes and followed her, “What’s going- oh! Oh dear!”

*

Adam’s eyes began to flutter open. The first thing he saw was his group of friends and the flashes of love that he always felt when they were all together. He smiled a little when he knew that they were side-by-side again. All he wanted was to make the world a better place for them; they deserved it. 

But then, he noticed they all looked scared. Brian had made eye contact with him; Wensley was searching around the scene; Pepper was looking past him. And his ringing ears finally began to register the sound of voices.

“You don’t own him! He’s his own person!” Pepper shouted vehemently, “He doesn’t want to be with you!” 

Then he heard the tell-tale click of a cocking gun. He turned his head around and realized he was held in the arms of Lucy. He mumbled, “What…?” 

“Let us go or else-- or else--” he felt something metal press against his temple, “Or else!” 

“You’re not seriously going to kill your son, are you?” Antonia shouted from behind the two of them, “You’re more fucked up than I thought.” She tried to think of a way she could shoot Lucy that would ensure that her trigger finger wouldn’t slip.

Ezra held out his hands, keeping his eye on the precarious situation before him, “Everyone just calm down!” If he could talk her down then everything could still be okay, no one else would have to be hurt, “We know you don’t want to do this.”

“Fuck you all!” she tried to pull Adam to his feet along with her, “None of you will get your hands on him because he is _mine!_”

Antonia felt sick. She was dragging Adam away like an object, refusing to look at him as a real person, but rather something that she could possess. Something that others had unfairly stolen from her when Adam had actually _chosen_ to get away from her. Lucy looked around for a car to hijack, all the while keeping her gun trained on Adam. He got to his senses enough to begin to struggle against her hold, and she clutched a hand over his mouth.

Just when things couldn’t get any worse, the upturned car burst into flames with a loud crash. 

_Bang!_

The explosion caused everyone to startle, including the woman who was only a twitch away from pulling the trigger of her pistol. The person in her arms began to slouch over. Lucy stared at the smoking gun in her hand, realizing what she had done. It tumbled from her grip. Her quivering hands flew up to cover her mouth as she saw Adam sink to the floor in a bloody puddle. 

And then, without any conscious effort, Ezra reached for Antonia’s gun and emptied the chamber into Lucy’s chest. 

“Oh fuck!” Antonia screamed.

*  
*  
*

“Flowers, angel?” 

“That’s what one is supposed to do in situations like these, no?”

Antonia frowned, “See, these are the kind of flowers that you would bring to a wedding. Completely not appropriate.”

“Oh…” he looked down at his simple bouquet, “I just thought they looked nice.” 

Antonia leaned against his shoulder, “They do look nice; I’m not denying that. But he’s not getting married, for heaven’s sake.”

They disembarked the bus at the central Oxford.

“Shall I throw them away, then?” Ezra hovered the flowers over a nearby bin. 

“Come on, you don’t need to do that.” Antonia grabbed his arm to pull him into the hospital. She noticed his hesitation and added, “Don’t feel bad.”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“She was mad; she would have gone after us next. Really you did the best thing.”

“Yes,” he breathed. Instinctively, he knew this was false and that his actions were entirely out of vengeance rather than self-defense. But it was nice of her to try and keep up the comforting fiction; the facade of separation between the two of them. 

They found their way to Adam’s room, where they discovered that Pepper, Wensley, and Brian had made it there before them. They gave a sheepish knock on the wall before walking through the door frame. Adam’s face lit up at seeing the two of them come in, though Ezra hung back and just waved. He never knew what to do when people were in hospital. 

“Hullo,” Adam said cheerily.

Antonia sat down by his bed, “You must be doing fine, I heard you guys joking before we got in.” 

“Yeah, I’m feeling a lot better.”

“Good, good.” Antonia waved Ezra to come closer, “Look, he’s got you flowers!” 

“I see that,” Adam nodded.

Ezra cautiously offered them out and Adam’s friends went off in search of a vase. 

“Adam…” he began, “I’m so--”

Adam held up a hand to silence him, “Don’t apologize. You saved me.”

“But I--”

He shook his head and Ezra dropped it. He suspected that somewhere deep down, Adam was in a lot of pain. Most likely shocked and grieving and heartbroken, but the elation at his own survival was too overwhelming for him to consider the turmoil underneath it all. Ezra knew it would only be a matter of time before he broke down; and when that happened, he would be there for him. He owed him that at the very least. 

“When d’you think you’ll be getting back to school?” Antonia nudged him.

“Few weeks hopefully,” he shrugged, “I can’t wait till I get out of here.” When Antonia smiled at him, he began to look downcast. “I can’t finish my list. I’m sorry. I thought I could, but-”

“It’s okay,” Antonia pulled Adam into a long, warm hug. Holding him tight. Ezra regarded the scene, thinking that maybe she wouldn’t be such a bad mother after all, if she ever decided to take care of something more than a plant. Who knows, maybe someday. For now, they could continue to mentor Adam together. Ezra had grown rather fond of him and his friends. There was just something about them that sparked hope, even in the face of insurmountable odds. 

Whether Adam would be able to walk again was uncertain; it was still early days. Injuries to the spine could be awful like that. Ezra would have imagined one losing all hope in that situation, but that’s not what happened to Adam. On the contrary, he somehow seemed relieved that things worked out the way they did.

Their hug finally came to an end and Antonia tousled his hair, leaving him with his friends. The four adolescents, together again, began their usual banter. Meanwhile, she walked back to Ezra. 

“We need to talk,” she murmured.

“Yes, I’m afraid we do.” They hadn’t had a proper chat since their argument, and one was long overdue. 

They wandered out of the hospital, seeking out a little private spot in a nearby park. Antonia sat and patted the grass next to her. Ezra lowered himself down as well. They stopped to listen to the birds chirping for a moment, and Ezra swore he heard a nightingale’s lovely song over the noise of the traffic. It was a wonderful moment; one that he would have wanted to make last forever if he could. 

She began the chat by stating the obvious, “Everything that happened… with Adam, you know, that’s got me thinking.”

Ezra had been thinking as well. And what he had concluded was that their future was ineffable once again, and perhaps they could make things work this time. Truly run away with new identities. Get married. Do everything that they should have done all those years ago. Life was short and they may as well enjoy every second that they could together. Ezra couldn’t deny that the past few weeks had been the most exciting in a long time. The last thing he wanted to do was be alone in that miserable cottage again.

And then, like a spoon cracking the top of a creme brûlée, Antonia’s voice shattered the perfection.

“I’m leaving.”

He turned his head sharply, not quite believing what he had heard, “What?” 

“I’m going away. Soon as possible.”

“But… where?” 

“Alpha Centauri,” she said, “What does it matter?” 

“Aren’t I going with you?” 

She softly shook her head. Ezra’s breath left him all at once. When he finally managed to respond, his voice was no more than a small whimper, “I don’t want you to go.”

“You do,” Antonia said, “Deep down, you know it’s what’s best.”

“No…”

“Yes, angel.” And then noticing how much his face had fallen, she added, “C’mon, you’ll finally be free of me.”

“You don’t love me anymore.” Ezra stated.

“Not that. Never that,” she shrugged, “I’m just fucked up. You deserve better. Find someone boring who will take care of you and cook for you and watch movies with you.”

“I don’t want any of that, I want you.” Ezra grabbed her hand desperately, “Please, my darling--”

“I’ll still be around,” she assured him, allowing him to hold on to her, but stopping herself from squeezing his hand back, “Promise me you’ll be around too. The world’s a more interesting place with you in it.”

“Antonia--”

“Actually thinking of going back to Anthony for now,” he shrugged again, “Who knows? Maybe someday we’ll cross paths. Maybe I’ll have a completely different name by then. Maybe Damian.” He cringed, “Actually, not that, but something similar-”

“But Adam…?” Ezra cried out.

“He knows.”

“But… are you going to finish your hit list?” Ezra asked, trying to think of any reason for him to stay.

“Nah,” Anthony smiled wistfully, “I had trouble coming up with a fitting punishment for her, but now I think what she deserves is proper justice, don’t you?”

He nodded, “Proper justice. That sounds… good.”

“I can’t wait to see her on the telly being taken away in handcuffs; the news anchor saying that Ezra Fell’s pivotal testimony brought her down. That’d wipe the smug grin off her face.”

“Oh,” Ezra let out a breath, suddenly feeling very alone with a heavy weight on his shoulders, “You mean…?”

Anthony nodded, “I know you can do it.”

“But what will you do?” 

“I might get a shrink. Maybe try a new hair colour,” he gave Ezra a casual glance, “And if you hear about a bunch of CEOs of oil companies and such going missing, then…”

“Then I’ll know you’re out there.” 

“Exactly.”

He stood abruptly, reaching down to lift Ezra to his feet. He could barely keep himself up, the ground having fallen out from under him. 

Anthony looked back over and saw those perfect blue eyes just starting to well up. Ezra threw his arms around him. Trying, desperately, to cling on and keep him from flying off into the stars, saying that he forgave him, that he couldn’t live without him. All the things that Anthony had said to him what felt like a thousand years earlier. 

And then, all too soon, Anthony untangled himself from Ezra’s grip. It was time for him to leave.   
The sun was beginning to set on them as they wandered down to the street towards the bus stop. Ezra couldn’t keep himself from looking at Anthony, trying to memorize every little thing about him in the dusk lighting. Soon he would be nothing but a memory, a dream, a hope. And then, the bus arrived.

Anthony buried his face in Ezra’s hair to press a few final kisses. His curls muffled the whisper, “Don’t ever go bald, okay?” 

He boarded the bus out of Oxford.

“Stay safe!” Ezra just barely managed to shout after him.

He looked back over his shoulder one last time, “Aw, but where’s the fun in that?” 

Ezra straightened up watching the bus depart, taking his love to god-knows-where. It was by far not the first time he was left all alone, but it was the first time that being left alone was bittersweet instead of just bitter. He doubled back towards the hospital, ready to take Adam under his wing and do everything he had promised Anthony and himself that he would do. By God, it was the first day of the rest of his life.


End file.
